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SONGS UNSUNG 



■'' LEWIS MORRIS 



// 



OF PENBKYN 

M. A. ; HONORARY FELLOW OF JKSUS COLLEGE, OXFORD 
KNIGHT OF THE REDEEMER OF GREECE, ETC., ETC. 



33 



FIDE ET AMOKL 




BOSTON 
ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1S84 






{The 7-/^hts of iyanslathvi and oj rcpyoducticn arc rcscrz'cd.'^' 



«3: 



PREFACE. 

After a silence of more than three years, due to other 
engrossing occupations; the writer once more appeals to 
his readers with a volume in which the leading features 
of his former works will probably be found combined. 
The story of " Odatis " is derived from Athena^us. That 
of '^ Clytasmnestra in Paris " follows accurately, in all 
matters of fact, the evidence given in the well-known 
Fenayrou trial of August, 1882. The " Three Breton 
Poems " are from the " Barzaz Breiz." One of them, 
" The Foster Brother," has, as the author has learnt 
since his version was written, already appeared in a 
volume of Translations from the same source, published 
some years ago. 

Penbryn, Carmarthen, 
October, 1883. 



CONTENTS 



pa(;e 

Pictures — I. ... ... ... ... ... i 

The Lesson of Time ... ... ... ... 9 

Vendredi Saint ... ... ... ... ... 12 

"No more, no more" ... ... ... ... 20 

The New Creed ... ... ... ... ... 21 

A Great Gulf ... ... ... ... ... 38 

One Day ... ... ... ... ... ... 42 

Seasons ... ... ... .. ... 44 

The Pathos of Art ... ... ... 46 

In the Strand ... ... ... ... ... 49 

Ccelum non Animum ... ... ... ... 51 

NiOBE ... ... ... .. ... ... 53 

Pictures— 11. ... ... ... ... ... 65 

A Night in Naples ... ... .. ... 68 

Life ... ... ... ... ... ... 72 

Cradled in Music ... ... ... ... 74 



viii Con [tilts. 



I'ACK 

Odatis ... ... ... ... ... ... 79 

In Wild Wales — 

I. — At the Eisteddfod ... ... ... 99 

II. — At the Meeting Field . ... ... 102 

Suffrages ... ... ... ... ... 106 

Look out, O Love ... ... ... ... ... 116 

Saint Christopher ... ... ... ... 118 

Pictures — III. ... ... ... ... ... 139 

Confession ... ... ... ... ... 143 

Love Unchanged ... ... ... ... ... 149 

Clyt^emnestra in Paris ... ... ... 151 

At the End ... ... ... ... ... 174 

Three Breton Poems — 

I. — The Orphan Girl of Lannion ... ... 178 

II. — The Foster Brother ... ... ... 183 

III. — Azenor ... ... ... ... ... 196 



SONGS UNSUNG, 



-•0*- 



PICTURES— I. 

Above the abysmal undivided deep 

A train of glory streaming from afar ; 

And in the van, to wake the worlds from sleep, 

One on whose forehead shines the Morning-Star. 



Long-rolling surges of a falling sea, 
Smiting the sheer cliffs of an unknown shore ; 
And by a fanged rock, swaying helplessly 
A mast with broken cordage — nothing more. 



B 






Three peaks, one loftier, all in virgin white, 
Poised high in cloudland when the day is done, 
And on the mid-most, far above the night, 
The rose-red of the long-departed sun. 



A wild girl reeling, helpless, like to fall, 
Down a hushed street at dawn in midsummer ; 
And one who had clean forgot their past and all. 
From a lit palace casement looks at her. 



A young man, only clothed with youth's best bloom, 
In mien and form an angel, not in eye ; 
Hard by, a fell worm creeping from a tomb. 
And one, wide-eyed, who cries, ''The Enemy !" 



Pictures — /. % 



Eros beneath a red-cupped tree, asleep, 
And floating round him, Hke to cherubim, 
Fair rosy laughter-dimpled loves, who peep 
Upon the languid loosened limbs of him. 



J 



A lake of molten fires which swell and surge 
And fall in thunders on the burning verge ; 
And one a queen rapt, with illumined face. 
Who doth defy the Goddess of the place. 



A darkling gateway, thronged with entering ghosts. 
And a grave janitor, who seems to say : 
" Woe, woe to youth, to life, which idly boasts ; 
I am the End, and mine the appointed Way." 



Songs U7isting. 



A young Faun making music on a reed, 

Deep in a leafy dell in Arcady : 

Three girl-nymphs fair, in musing thought take heed 

Of the strange youth's mysterious melody. 



A flare of lamplight in a shameful place 
Full of wild revel and unchecked offence, 
And in the midst, one fresh scarce-sullied face, 
Within her eyes, a dreadful innocence. 



A quire of seraphs, chanting row on row, 
With lute and viol and high trumpet notes ; 
And, above all, their soft young eyes aglow — 
Child angels, making laud from full clear throats. 



Pzchcres — /. 



Some, on a cliff at dawn, in agony ; 

Below, a scaly horror on the sea. 

Lashing the leaden surge. Fast-bound, a maid 

Waits on the verge, alone, but unafraid. 



A poisonous, dead, sad sea-marsh, fringed with pines, 
Thin-set with mouldering churches, old as Time ; 
Beyond, on high, just touched with wintry rime. 
The long chain of the autumnal Apennines. 



A god-like Presence, beautiful as dawn, 
Watching, upon an untrodden summit white, 
The Earth's last day grow full, and fade in night ; 
Then, with a sigh, the Presence is withdrawn. 



So7tgs Unsti7tg. 



A sheer rock-islet, frowning on the sea 
Where no ship sails, nor ever life may be : 
Thousands of leagues around, from pole to pole. 
The unbounded lonely ocean-currents roll. 



Young maids who wander on a flower-lit lawn, 
In springtide of their lives as of the year ; 
Meanwhile, unnoticed, swift, a thing of fear. 
Across the sun, a deadly shadow drawn. 



Slow, hopeless, overborne, without a word, 
Two issuing, as if from Paradise ; 
Behind them, stern, and with unpitying eyes. 
Their former selves, wielding a two-edged sword. 



P utilises — /. 



A weary woman tricked with gold and gem, 
Wearing some strange barbaric diadem, 
Scorn on her Hps, and, Uke a hidden fire, 
Within her eyes cruel unslaked desire. 



Two aged figures, poor, and blurred with tears ; 
Their child, a bold proud woman, sweeping by ; 
A hard cold face, which pities not nor fears, 
And all conten^pt and evil in her eye. 



Around a harpsichord, a blue-eyed throng 
Of long-dead children, rapt in sounds devout, 
In some old grange, while on that silent song 
The sabbath twilight fades, and stars come out. 



8 - Songs Unsung. 



The end of things created ; Dreadful night, 
Advancing swift on sky, and earth, and sea ; 
But at the zenith a departing light, 
A soaring countless blessed company. 



THE LESSON OF TIME. 

Lead thou me, Spirit of the World, and I 
Will follow where thou leadest, willingly ; 
Not with the careless sceptic's idle mood, 
Nor blindly seeking some unreal good ; 

For I have come, long since to that full day 
Whose morning mists have fled and curled away- 
That breathless afternoon-tide when the Sun 
Halts, as it were, before his journey done, 

Calm as a river broadening through the plain, 
Which never plunges down the rocks again, 
But, clearly mirrored in its tranquil deep, 
Holds tower and spire and forest as in sleep. 



I o Songs Unsung. 

How old and worn the metaphor appears, 

Old as the tale of passing hopes and fears ! 

New as the springtide air, which day by day 

Breathes on young lives, and speeds them on their way. 

The Roman knew it, and the Hellene too ; 
Assyrian and Egyptian proved it true ; 
Who found for youth's young glory and its glow 
Serener life, and calmer tides run slow. 

And them oblivion takes, and those before. 
Whose very name and race we know no more, 
To whom, oh Spirit of the World and Man, 
Thou didst reveal Thyself when Time began, — 

They felt, as I, what none may understand ; 
They touched through darkness on a hidden hand ; 
They marked their hopes, their faiths, their longings fade, 
And found a solitude themselves had made ; 



The Lesson of Tijjie. i t 

They came, as I, to hope which conquers doubt, 
Though sun and moon and every star go out ; 
They ceased, while at their side a still voice said, 
" Fear not, have courage ; blessed are the dead." 

They were my brothers — of one blood with me, 
As with the unborn myriads who shall be : 
I am content to rise and fall as they ; 
I watch the rising of the Perfect Day. 

Lead thou me. Spirit, willing and content 
To be, as thou wouldst have me, wholly spent. 
I am thine own, I neither strive nor cry : 
Stretch forth thy hand, I follow, silently. 



VENDREDI SAINT. 

This is Paris, the beautiful city, 
Heaven's gate to the rich, to the poor without pity. 
The clear sun shines on the fair town's graces, 
And on the cold green of the shrunken river, 
And the chill East blows, as 'twould blow for ever, 
On the holiday groups with their shining faces. 

For this is the one solemn day of the season. 

When all the swift march of her gay unreason 

Pauses a while, and a thin mask of sadness 

Is spread o'er the features of riot and madness. 

And the churches are crowded with devotees holy, 

Rich and poor, saint and sinner, the great and the lowly. 



Vendredi Saint. 13 



Here is a roofless palace, where gape r 

Casements in rows without form or shape : 

A sordid ruin, whose swift decay 

Speaks of that terrible morning in May 

When the whole fair city was blood and fire, 

And the black smoke of ruin rose higher and higher, 

And through the still streets, 'neath the broad Spring sun, 
Everywhere murder and rapine were done ; 
Women lurking, with torch in hand. 
Evil eyed, sullen, who soon should stand 
Before the sharp bayonets, dripping with blood, 
x\nd be pierced through and through, or shot dead where 
they stood. 



This is the brand-new Hotel de Ville, 

Where six hundred wretches met death in the fire ; 



14 Songs Unsttng, 

Ringed round with a pitiless hedge of steel, 

Not one might escape that swift vengeance. To-day 

The ruin, the carnage, are clean swept away ; 

And the sumptuous facades, and the high roofs aspire, 

And, upon the broad square, the white palace face 
Looks down with a placid and meaningless grace, 
Ignoring the bloodshed, the struggle, the sorrow, 
The doom that has been, and that may be to-morrow. 
The hidden hatred, the mad endeavour, 
The strife that has been and shall be for ever. 

^ * ^ % % =H: 

Here rise the twin-towers of Notre Dame, 
Through siege, and revolt, and ruin the same. 
See the people in crowds pressing onward, slowly, 
Along the dark aisles to the altar holy — 
The altar, to-day, wrapt in mourning and gloom, 
Since He whom they worship lies dead in the tomb. 



\ 



Vendredi Saint. 15 

There, by a tiny acolyte tended, 
A round-cheeked child in his cassock white, 
Lies the tortured figure to which are bended 
The knees of the passers who gaze on the sight, 
And the people fall prostrate, and kiss and mourn 
The fair dead limbs which the nails have torn. 

And the passionate music comes from the quire, 
Full of soft chords of a yearning pity 
The mournful voices accordant aspire 
To the far-off gates of the Heavenly City ; 
And the soft clear alto, soaring high and higher. 
Mounts now a surging fountain, now a heavenward fire. 

Ay, eighteen centuries after the day, 

A world-worn populace kneel and pray. 

As they pass by and gaze on the limbs unbroken. 

What symbol is this ? of what yearnings the token ? 



1 6 Songs Unsung, 



What spell this that leads men a part to be 
Of this old Judsean death-agony ? 

And I asked, Was it nought but a Nature Divine, 
That for lower Natures consented to die ? 
Could a greater than human sacrifice, 
Still make the tears spring to the world-worn eye ? 
One thought only it was that replied, and no other 
This man was our brother. 

^ 9|f T|f ^ '^ »(? 

As I pass from the church, in the cold East wind, 
All its solemn teachings are left behind : 
Here, once again, by the chill blue river, 
The blighted buds on the branches shiver ; 
Here, again, are the holiday groups, with delight 
Gaping in wonder at some new sight. 

'Tis an open doorway, squalid and low. 
And crowds which ceaselessly come and go. 



Vendredi Saint. 17 



Careless enough ere they see the sight 
Which leaves the gay faces pallid and white : 
Something is there which can change their mood, 
And check the holiday flow of the blood. 

For the face which they see is the face of Death. 
Strange, such a thing as the ceasing of breath 
Should work such miraculous change as here : 
Turn the thing that we love, to a thing of fear ; 
Transform the sordid, the low, the mean. 
To a phantasm, pointing to Depths unseen. 

There they lie, the dead, unclaimed and unknown, 

Each on his narrow and sloping stone. 

The chill water drips from each to the ground ; 

No other movement is there, nor sound. 

With the look which they wore when they came to die. 

They gaze from blind eyes on the pitiless sky. 



1 8 Songs Unsung. 



No woman to-day, thank Heaven, is here; 
But men, old for the most part, and broken quite. 
Who, finding this sad world a place of fear. 
Have leapt forth hopelessly into the night. 
Bankrupt of faith, without love, unfriended. 
Too tired of the comedy ere 'twas ended. 

But here is one younger, whose ashy face 

Bears some faint shadow of former grace. 

What brought him here ? was it love's sharp fever ? 

Was she worse than dead that he bore to leave her ? 

Or was his young life, ere its summer came, 

Burnt by Passion's whirlwinds as by a flame. 

Was it Drink or Desire, or the die's sure shame, 
Which led this poor wanderer to deep disgrace ? 
Was it hopeless misfortune, unmixed with blame, 
That laid him here dead, in this dreadful place ? 



Vendredi Saint, 19 

Ah Heaven, of these nineteen long centuries, 

Is the sole fruit this thing with the sightless eyes ! 

Yesterday, passion and struggle and strife, 
Hatreds, it may be, and anger-choked breath ; 
Yesterday, fear and the burden of life ; 
To-day, the cold ease and the calmness of death : 
And that which strove and sinned and yielded there, 
To-day in what hidden place of God's mysterious air ? 

Whatever he has been, here now he lies, 

Facing the stare of unpitying eyes. 

I turn from the dank and dishonoured face, 

To the fair dead Christ by his altar place, 

And the same thought replies to my soul, and no other — 

This, too, was our brother. 



(( 



NO MORE, NO MORE." 



" No more, no more," the autumnal shadows cry ; 
" No more, no more," our faiUng hearts reply : 
Oh ! that our lives were come to that calm shore 
Where change is done, and fading is no more. 

But should some mightier hand completion send, 
And smooth life's stream unrippled to its end, 
Our sated souls, filled with an aching pain. 
Would yearn for waning days and years again. 

Thrice blessed be the salutary change 

Which day by day brings thoughts and feelings strange ! 

Our gain is loss, we keep but what we give, 

And only daily dying may we live. 



THE NEW CREED. 

Yesterday, to a girl I said — 

*'I take no pity for the unworthy dead, 

The wicked, the unjust, the vile who die ; 

'Twere better thus that they should rot and lie. 

The sweet, the lovable, the just 

Make holy dust ; 

Elsewhere than on the earth 

Shall come their second birth. 

Until they go each to his destined place, 

Whether it be to bliss or to disgrace, 

'Tis well that both shall rest, and for a while be dead." 

"There is nowhere else," she said. 



2 2 Songs Uiisttng. 



" There is nowhere else." And this was a girl's voice, 

Who, some short tale of summers gone to-day, 

Would carelessly rejoice, 

As life's blithe springtide passed upon its way 

And all youth's infinite hope and bloom 

Shone round her ; nor might any shadow of gloom 

Fall on her as she passed from flower to flower ; 

Love sought her, with full dower 

Of happy wedlock and young lives to rear ; 

Nor shed her eyes a tear, 

Save for some passing pity, fancy bred. 

All good things were around her — riches, love, 

All that the heart and mind can move. 

The precious things of art, the undefiled \ 

And innocent affection of a child. ; 

I 

Oh girl, who amid sunny ways dost tread. 

What curse is this that blights that comely head ? 



The New Creed. 23 



For right or wrong there is no further place than here, 
No sanctities of hope, no chastening fear ? 
" There is nowhere else," she said. 

" There is nowhere else," and in the wintry ground 

When we have laid the darlings of our love — 

The little lad with eyes of blue, 

The little maid with curls of gold, 

Or the beloved aged face 

On which each passing year stamps a diviner grace — 

That is the end of all, the narrow bound. 

Why look our eyes above 

To an unreal home which mortal never knew — 

Fold the hands on the breast, the clay-cold fingers fold .^ 

No waking comes there to the uncaring dead ! 

"There is nowhere else," she said. 

Strange ; is it old or new, this deep distress } 
Or do the generations, as they press 



24 Songs Unsting, 

Onward for ever, onward still, 

Finding no truth to fill 

Their starving yearning souls, from year to year 

Feign some new form of fear 

To fright them, some new terror 

Couched on the path of error, 

Some cold and desolate word which, like a blow, 

Forbids the current of their faith to flow, 

Makes slow their pulse's eager beat, 

And, chilling all their wonted heat, 

Leaves them to darkling thoughts and dreads a prey, 

Uncheered by dawning shaft or setting ray ? 

Ah, old it is, indeed, and nowise new. 
This is the poison-growth that grew 
In the old thinkers' fancy-haunted ground. 
They, blinded by some keen too-vivid gleam 
Of the Unseen, to which all things did seem 



The New Creed. 25 

To shape themselves and tend, 

Solved, by some Giant Force, the Mystery of Things, 

And, soaring all too high on Fancy's wings. 

Saw in dead matter both their Source and End. 

They felt the self-same shock and pain 

As I who hear these prattlings cold to-day. 

Not otherwise of old the fool to his heart did say. 

^' There is no other place of joy or grief. 

Nor wrong in doubt, nor merit in belief : 

There is no God, nor Lord of quick and dead ; 

There is nowhere else," they said. 

And, indeed, if any to whom life's path were rough 
Should say as you, he had cause maybe at sight. 
For lo, the way is steep and hard enough, 
And wrong is tangled and confused with right ; 
And from all the world there goes a solemn sound 
Of lamentations, rising from the ground, 



26 Sono-s Unsuno;. 



Confused as that which shocks the wondering ear 
Of one who, gUding on the still lagune, 
Finds the oar's liquid plash and tune 
Broken by wild cries of frenzy and of fear, 
And knows the Isle of Madness drawing near ; 
And the scheme of things, if scheme there be indeed, 
Is a book deeper than our eyes may read, 
Full of wild paradox, and vain endeavour, 
And hopes and faiths which find completion never. 
For such a one, in seasons of dismay 
And deep depression and despair, 
Clouds come ofttimes to veil the face of day, 
And there is no ray left of all the beams of gold, 
The glow, the radiance bright, the unclouded faith of 
old. 

But you, poor child forlorn, 

Ah ! better were it you were never born ; 



The Nezv Creed. 27 



Better that you had thrown your Hfe away 

On some coarse lump of clay ; 

Better defeat, disgrace, childlessness, all 

That can a soHtary life befall, 

Than to have all things and yet be 

Self-bound to dark despondency, 

And self-tormented, beyond reach of doubt. 

By some cold word that puts all yearnings out. 

" There is nowhere else," she said : 

This is the outcome of their crude Belief 

Who are, beyond all rescue and relief, 

Being self-slain and numbered with the dead. 

" There is no God but Force, 

Which, working always on its destined course. 

Speeds on its way and knows no thought of change. 

Within the germ the molecule fares free, 

Holding the potency of what shall be ; 



28 Songs Unsung. 

Within the Httle germ lurks the heaven-reaching tree : 
No break is there in all the cosmic show. 
What place is there, in all the Scheme Immense, 
For a remote unworking Excellence 
Which may not be perceived by any sense, 
Which makes no humble blade of grass to grow, 
Which adds no single link to things and thoughts we 
know ? " 

*' For everything that is, indeed. 

Bears with it its own seed ; 

It cannot change or cease and be no more : 

For ever all things are even as they were before 

Or if, by long degrees and slow, 

More complex doth the organism grow. 

It makes no break in the eternal plan ; 

There is no gulf that yawns between the herb and 



man." 



The New Creed. 29 



Poor child, what is it they have taught, 

Who through deep glooms and desert wastes of thought 

Have brought to such as you their dreary creed ? 

Have they no care, indeed, 

For all the glorious gains of man's long past, 

For all our higher hope of what shall be at last ? 

" All things are moulded in one mould ; 

They spring, they are, they fade by one compulsion cold — 

Some dark necessity we cannot know, 

Which bids them wax and grow, — 

That is sufficient cause for all things, quick and dead ! " 

" There is no Cause else," she said. 

Oh, poor indeed, and in evil case. 
Who shouldst be far from sound of doubt 
As a maiden in some restful place 
Whose busy life, year in year out, 



30 Songs Unstmg. 



Is made of gentle worship, homely days 
Marked by their growing sum of prayer and praise, 
The church spire pointing to the longed-for sky, 
The heaven that opens to the cloistered eye. 
For us, for us, who mid the weary strife 
And jangling discords of our life 
Are day by day opprest, 
'Twere little wonder were our souls distrest, 
God, and the life to be, and all our early trust 
Being far from us expelled and thrust ; 
But for you, child, who cannot know at all 
To what hidden laws we stand or fall. 

To what bad heights the wrong within may grow, : 

To what dark deeps the stream of hopeless lives may 
flow ! I 

! 

* 

For let the doubter babble as he can, * 

There is no wit in man \ 



The New Creed. 3 1 



Which can make Force rise higher still 
Up to the heights of Will,— 
No phase of Force which finite minds can know- 
Can self-determined grow, 
And of itself elect what shall its essence be : 
The same to all eternity, 

Unchanged, unshaped, it goes upon its blinded way; 
Nor can all forces nor all laws 
Bring ceasing to the scheme, nor any pause, 
Nor shape it to the mould in which to be — 
Form from the winged seed the myriad-branching tree, 
Nor guide the force once sped, so that it turn 
To Water-floods that quench or Fires that burn. 
Or now to the electric current change. 
Or draw all things by some attraction strange. 
Or in the brain of man, working unseen, sublime. 
Transcend the narrow bounds of Space and Tim?. 



o 



2 Songs Ujisung. 



Whence comes the innate Power which knows to guide 

The force deflected so from side to side, 

That not a barren line from whence to where 

It goes upon its way through the unfettered air ? 

What sways the prisoned atom on its fruitful course ? 

Ah, it was more than Force 

Which gave the Universe of things its form and face ! 

Force moving on its path through Time and Space 

Would nought enclose, but leave all barren still. 

A higher Power, it was, the worlds could form and fill ; 

And by some pre-existent harmony 

Were all things made as Fate would have them be — 

Fate, the ineffable Word of an Eternal Will. 

All things that are or seem, 

Whether we wake who see or do but dream, 

Are of that Primal Will phantasms, if no more ; 

He who sees these sees God, and seeing doth adore. 



The New Creed. 33 

Joy, suffering, evil, good, 

Whate'er our daily food, 

Whate'er the mystery and paradox of things. 

Low creeping thoughts and high imaginings. 

The laughters of the world, the age-long groan, 

Bring to his mind one name, one thought alone ; 

All beauty, right, deformity, or wrong. 

Sing to his ear one high unchanging song ; 

And everything that is, to his rapt fancy brings 

The hidden beat through space of the Eternal Wings. 

Where did the Idea dwell. 

At first, which was of all the germ and seed ? 

Which worked from Discord order, from blind Force 

Sped all the Cosmos on its upward course ? 

Which held within the atom and the cell 

The whole vast hidden Universe, sheltered well. 

Till the hour came to unfold it, and the need ? 



'^ 



4 Songs Unsting. 



What did the ever-upward growth conceive, i 

Which from the obedient monad formed the herb, the tree, - 

The animal, the man, the high growths that shall be ? 

Ever from simpler to more complex grown, 

The long processions from a source unknown 

Unfold themselves across the scene of life. 

Oh blessed struggle and strife. 

Fare onward to the end, since from a Source 

Thou art, which doth transcend and doth determine Force ! 

Fare onward to the end ; not from Force, dead and blind, 

Thou comest, but from the depths of the Creative Mind. 

Fare on to the end, but how should ending be, 

If Will be in the Universe, and plan ? 

Some higher thing shall be, that which to-day is Man. 

Undying is each cosmic force : 

Undying, but transformed, it runs its endless course ; 

It cannot wane, or sink, or be no more. 



The New Creed. 35 

Not even the dust and lime which clothe us round 

Lose their own substance in the charn el-ground, 

Or carried far upon the weltering wind ; 

Only with other growths combined, 

In some new whole they are for ever — 

They are, and perish never. 

The great suns shed themselves in heat and light 

Upon the unfilled interstellar air. 

Till all their scattered elements unite 

And are replenished as before they were. 

Nothing is lost, nor can be : change alone. 

Unceasing, never done, 

Shapes all the forms of things, and keeps them still 

Obedient to the Unknown Perfect Will. 

And shall the life that is the highest that we know, 

Shall this, alone, no more increase, expand and grow ? 



36 Songs Unsung. 



Nay, somewhere else there is, although we know not 

where, 
Nor what new shape God gives our lives to wear. 
We are content, whatever it shall be ; 
Content, through all eternity. 

To be whatever the Spirit of the World deem best ; — 
Content to be at restj 

Content to work and fare through endless days ; 
Content to spend ourselves in endless praise : 
Nay, if it be the Will Divine, 
Content to be, and through long lives to pine. 
Far from the light which vivifies, the fire 
Which breathes upon our being and doth inspire 
All soaring thoughts and hopes which light our pathway 

here ; 
Content, though with some natural thrill of fear, 
To be purged through by age-long pain. 
Till we resume our upward march again ; 



The New Creed. 37 

I Content, if need, to take some lower form, 

I Some humbler herb or worm 

1 

. To be awhile, if e'er the eternal plan 

' Go back from higher to lower, from man to less than man. 

Not so, indeed, we hold, but rather this — 

That all Time gone, that all that was or is. 

The scarped chff, the illimitable Past, 
1 This truth alone of all truths else hold fast : — 

From lower to higher, from simple to complete, 

This is the pathway of the Eternal Feet; 

From earth to lichen, herb to flowering tree. 

From cell to creeping worm, from man to what shall be. 

This is the solemn lesson of all time, 
' This is the teaching of the voice sublime : 

Eternal are the worlds, and all that them do fill \ 

Eternal is the march of the Creative Will ; 

Eternal is the life of man, and sun, and star ; 

Ay, even though they fade a while, they are ; 

And though they pause from shining, speed for ever still. 



A GREAT GULF. 

If any tender sire 
Who sits girt round by loving faces 
And happy childhood's thousand graces, 
Through sudden crash or fire 

Should 'scape from this poor life to some mysterious air, 
And, dwelling solitary there, 
Should feel his unfilled yearning father's heart 
Pierced through by some intolerable smart ; 
And, sickening for the dear lost lives again. 
Should through his overmastering pain 
Break through the awful bounds the Eternal sets between 
That which lives Here, and There, the Seen and the 
Unseen ; 



A Great Gulf. 39 



And having gained once more 

The confines of the Earth, the scarce-left place 

Which greets him with unchanged familiar face — 

The well-remembered door, 

The rose he watered blooming yet. 

Nought to remember or forget, 

No change in all the world except in him, 

Nor there save in some sense, already dim 

Before the unchanged past, so that he seem 

A mortal spirit still, and what was since, a dream ; 

And in the well-known room 

Should find the blithe remembered faces 

Grown sad and blurred by recent traces 

Of a new sorrow and gloom, 

And when his soul to comfort them is fain 

Finds his voice mute, his form unknown, unseen, 



40 Songs Unstmg, 

And thinks with irrepressible pain 
Of all the happy days which late have been, 
And feels his new life's inmost chambers stirred 
If only of his own, he might be seen or heard ; 

Then if, at length, 

The father's yearning and o'erburdened soul 

Burst into shape and voice which scorn control 

Of its despairing strength, — 

Ah Heaven ! ah pity for the present dread 

Which strikes the old affection, dull and dead ! 

Ah, better were it far than this thing to remain, 

Voiceless, unseen, unloved, for ever and in pain ! 

So when a finer mind. 

Knowing its old self swept by some weird change 
And the old thought deceased, or else grown strange, 
Turns to those left behind, 



A Great Gulf. 41 

With passionate stress and mighty yearning stirred, — 

It strives to stand revealed in shape and word 

In vain ; or by strong travail visible grown, 

Finds but a world estranged, and lives and dies alone ! 



ONE DAY. 

One day, one day, our lives shall seem 
Thin as a brief forgotten dream : 
One day, our souls by life opprest, 
Shall ask no other boon than rest. 

And shall no hope nor longing come, 
No memory of our former home, 
No yearning for the loved, the dear 
Dead lives that are no longer here ? 

If this be age, and age no more 
Recall the hopes, the fears of yore, 



One Day. 4 

The dear dead mother's accents mild, 
The lisping of the little child, 

Come, Death, and slay us ere the blood 
Run slow, and turn our lives from good 
For only in such memories we 
Consent to linger and to be. 



"t 



SEASONS. 

The cold winds rave on the icy river, 
The leafless branches complain and shiver, 
The snow clouds sweep on, to a dreary tune, — 
Can these be the earth and the heavens of June ? — 

When the blossoming trees gleam in virginal white. 
And heaven's gate opens wide in the lucid night, 
And there comes no sound on the perfumed air 
But the passionate brown bird, carolling fair. 

And the lush grass in upland and lowland stands deep. 
And the loud landrail lulls the children to sleep. 
And the white still road and the thick-leaved wood 
Are haunted by fanciful solitude ; 



Seasons. 45 



And by garden and lane men and maidens walk, 
Busied with trivial, loverlike talk ; 
And the white and the red rose, newly blown, 
Open each, with a perfume and grace of its own. 

The cold wind sweeps o'er the desolate hill, 
The stream is bound fast and the wolds are chill ; 
And by the dead flats, where the cold blasts moan, 
A bent body wearily plods alone. 



THE PATHOS OF ART. 

Oft seeing the old painters' art, 
We find the tear unbidden start, 
And feel our full hearts closer grow 
To the far days of long ago. 

Not burning faith, or godlike pain. 
Can thus our careless thought enchain ; 
The heavenward gaze of souls sublime, 
At once transcends, and conquers time. 

Nor pictured form of seer or saint. 
Which hands inspired delight to paint ; 
Art's highest aims of hand or tongue, 
Age not, but are for ever young. 



The Pathos of Art. 47 

But some imperfect trivial scene, 
Of homely life which once has been, 
Of youth, so soon to pass away, 
Of happy childhood's briefer day ; 

Or humble daily tasks portrayed — 
The thrifty mistress with her maid ; 
The flowers, upon the casement set, 
Which in our Aprils blossom yet ; 

The long processions, never done ; 
The time-worn palace, scarce begun ; 
The gondolier, who plies his oar 
For stately sirs or dames of yore ; 

The girl with fair hair morning-stirred, 
Who swings the casement for her bird ; 
The hunt ; the feast ; the simple mirth 
Which marks the marriage or the birth ; 



4^ Songs U7tsung. 



The burly forms, from side to side 

Swift rolling on the frozen tide ; 

The long-haired knights ; the ladies prim 

The chanted madrigal or hymn ; 

The opera, with its stately throng ; 
The twilight church aisles stretching long 
The spires upon the wooded wold ; 
The dead pathetic life of old ; — 

These all the musing mind can fill — 
So dead, so past, so living still : 
Oh dear dead lives, oh hands long gone, 
Whose life, whose Art still lingers on ! 



IN THE STRAND. 

In the midst of the busy and roaring Strand, 

Dividing life's current on either hand, 
j A time-worn city church, sombre and grey, 
I Waits, while the multitude passes away. 

Beside it, a strait plot of churchyard ground 
* Is fenced by a time-worn railing around; 
li And within, like a pavement, the ground is spread 
I With the smooth worn stones of the nameless dead. 

But here and there, in the spaces between, 
When the slow Spring bursts, and the fields grow green, 
Every year that comes, 'mid the graves of the dead 
Some large-leaved flower-stem lifts up its head. 

E 



50 Songs Unsung. 

In the Spring, though as yet the sharp East be here, 
This green stem burgeons forth year by year : 
Through twenty swift summers and more, have I seen 
This tender shoot rise from its sheath of green. 

New busy crowds pass on with hurrying feet, 
The young lives grow old and the old pass away ; 
But unchanged, 'mid the graves, at the fated day. 
The green sheath bursts upwards and grows complete. 

From the grave it bursts forth, 'mid the graves it shall die, 
It shall die as we die, as it lives we shall live ; 
And this poor flower has stronger assurance to give, 
Than volumes of learning, which blunder or lie. 

For out of the dust and decay of the tomb. 
It springs, the sun calling, to beauty and bloom ; 
And amid the sad city, 'mid death and 'mid strife, 
It preaches its mystical promise of life. 



CCELUM NON ANIMUM. 

Oh fair to be, oh sweet to be 
In fancy's shallop faring free, 
With silken sail and fairy mast 
To float till all the world be past 

Oh happy fortune, on and on 
To wander far till care be gone, 

Round beetling capes, to unknown seas, 

Seeking the fair Hesperides ! 

But is there any land or sea 
Where toil and trouble cease to be — - 
Some dim, unfound, diviner shore, 
Where men may sin and mourn no more ? 



52 Songs Unsung. ] 
{ 

Ah, not the feeling, but the sky | 

We change, however far we fly ; 
How swift soe'er our bark may speed, 
Faster the blessed isles recede. 

Nay, let us seek at home to find 
Fit harvest for the brooding mind, 
And find, since thus the world grows fair, 
Duty and pleasure everywhere. 

Oh well-worn road, oh homely way, 
Where pace our footsteps, day by day, 
The homestead and the church which bound 
The tranquil seasons' circling round ! 

Ye hold experiences which reach 
Depths which no change of skies can teach, 
The saintly thought, the secret strife 
Which guide, which do perturb our life. 



NIOBE. 



ON SIPYLUS. 



Ah me, ah me ! on this high mountain peak, 
Which far above the seething Lydian plains 
Takes the first dawn-shaft, and the sunset keeps 
When all the fields grow dark — I, Niobe, 
A mother's heart, hid in a form of stone, 
Stand all day in the vengeful sun-god's eye, 
Stand all night in the cold gaze of the moon, 
Who both long ages since conspiring, slew 
My children, — I a childless mother now 
Who was most blest, a living woman still. 
Bereft of all, and yet who cannot die. 



54 Songs Unsung. 

Ah day, ill-fated day, which wrecked my life ! 
I was the happy mother of strong sons, 
Brave, beautiful, all in their bloom of age : 
From him my first-born, now a bearded man. 
Through the fair promise of imperfect youth, 
To the slim stripling who had scarcely left 
The women's chambers, on whose lip scant shade 
Of budding manhood showed, I loved them all ; 
All with their father's eyes, and that strange charm 
Of rhythmic grace, and musical utterance 
As when, in far-off Thebes, the enchanted wall 
Rose perfect, to the music of his lyre. 

Ah me, the fatal day ! For at high noon 

I sate within my Theban palace fair — 

Deep summer-time it was — and marked the crowd] 

From the thronged city street, to the smooth plain^ 

Stream joyously: the brave youths, full of life, 



Niobe. 5 5 

Stripped for the mimic fray, the leap, the race, 
The wrestling ; and the princes, my strong sons, 
The fair limbs 1 had borne beneath my zone 
Grown to full stature, such as maidens love, — 
The sinewy arms, the broad chests, and strong loins 
Of manhood ; the imperfect flower-like forms. 
Eager with youth's first fires ; my youngest born. 
My darling, doffing his ephebic robe 
Which late he donned with pride, a child in heart, 
In budding limbs a youth ; — I see them go 
Their fair young bodies glistening in the sun, 
Which kissed the shining olive. As they went, 
The joyous concourse winding towards the plain. 
My happy eyes o'erflowed, and as I turned 
And saw my daughters round me, fair grown lives 
And virgin, sitting spinning the white flax, 
Each with her distaff, beautiful and fit 
To wed with any stately king of men 



56 Songs Uns2ing, 



And reign a queen in Hellas, my glad heart 
Broke forth in pride, and as I looked I thought, 
'•' Oh happy, happy mother of such sons ! 
Oh happy, happy mother of such girls ! 

For whom full soon the joyous nuptial rites |i 

Shall bring the expectant bridegroom and the bride, 

And soon once more the little childish hands 

Which shall renew my early wedded years, 

When the king loved me first. Thrice blest indeed. 

There is no queen in Hellas such as I, 

Dowered with such fair-grown offspring ; not a queen 

Nor mother o'er all earth's plain, around which 

flows 
The wide salt stream of the surrounding sea, 
As blest as I am. Nay, in Olympus' self 
What offspring were they to all-ruling Zeus 
That Leto bore ? Phoebus and Artemis, . 

A goodly pair indeed, but two alone. 



Niobe, 57 

Poor mother, that to such a lord as Zeus 
Bare only those, no fairer than my own. 
Nay, I am happier than a goddess' self ; 
I would not give this goodly train of mine 
For that scant birth. I ask no boon of Zeus, 
Nor of the Olympian Gods ; for I am glad. 
No fruitful mother in a peasant's hut, 
Scorning the childless great, thinks scorn of me. 
Being such as I. Nay, let Queen Leto's self 
Know, that a mortal queen has chanced to bear 
As fair as she, and more." 

Even as I spoke, 
^^'hiIe the unholy pride flashed through my soul. 
There pierced through the closed lattice one keen shaft 
Of blinding sun, which on the opposite wall 
Traced some mysterious sign, and on my mind 
Such vague remorse and consciousness of ill, 
That straightway all my pride was sunk and lost 



5 8 Sono-s Unsimo-^ 



In a great dread, nor could I longer bear 

To look upon the fairness of my girls, 

Who, seeing the vague trouble in my eyes, 

Grew pale, and shuddered for no cause, and gazed 

Chilled 'midst the blaze of sunlight. 

Then I sought 
To laugh my fears away, as one who feels 
Some great transgression weigh on him, some load 
Which will not be removed, but bears him down, 
Though none else knows it, pressing on his heart. 

But when the half unuttered thought grew dim 
And my fear with it, suddenly a cry 
Rose from the city street, and then the sound 
Of measured hurrying feet, and looking forth 
To where the youth had passed so latCj in joy, 
Came two who carried tenderly, with tears, 
A boy's slight form. I had no need to look, 



Niobe. 59 

For all the mother rising in me knew 

That 'twas my youngest born they bore ; I knew 

What fate befell him — 'twas the vengeful sun, 

And I alone was guilty, I, his mother, 

Who being filled with impious pride, had brought 

Death to my innocent child. I hurried down 

The marble stair and met them as they came. 

And laid him down, and kissed his lips and called 

His name, yet knew that he was dead ; and all 

His brothers stood regarding us with tears. 

And would have soothed me with their loving words, 

Me guilty, who were guiltless, oh, my sons ! 

Till as I looked up from the corpse, — a cry 

Of agony, — and then another fell 

Struggling for life upon the earth, and then 

Another, and another, till the last 

Of all my stalwart boys, my life, my pride, 

Lay dead upon the field, and the fierce sun 



6o Songs Unsung. 

Frenzied my brain, and all distraught with woe 
I to the palace tottered, while they bore 
Slowly the comely corpses of my sons. 

That day I dare not think of where they lay, 
White shrouded, in the darkened palace rooms. 
Like sculptured statues on a marble hearse. 
How calm they looked and happy, my dear sons ! 
There was no look of pain within their eyes. 
The dear dead eyes which I their mother closed ; 
Me miserable ! I saw the priests approach, 
And ministers of death ; I saw my girls 
Flung weeping on the brothers whom they loved. 
I saw it all as in a dream. I know not 
How often the dead night woke into day, 
How often the hot day-time turned to night. 
I did not shudder even to see the Sun 
Which slew my sons ; but in the still, dead night, 



Niobe. 6 1 

When in that chill and lifeless place of death, 
The cold, clear, cruel moonlight seemed to play 
Upon the ranged corpses, and to mock 
My mother's heart, and throw on each a hue 
Of swift corruption ere its time, I knew 
Some secret terror lest the jealous gods 
Might find some further dreadful vengeance still, 
Taking what yet was left. 

At set of sun 
The sad procession to the place of graves 
Went with the rites of royal sepulchre, 
The high priest at its head, the nobles round 
The fair white shrouded corpses, last of all 
I went, the guilty one, my fair sweet girls 
Clinging to me in tears ; but I, I shed not 
A single tear — grief dried the fount of tears, 
I had shed all mine. 

Only o'ermastering fear 



62 Songs Unsung. 



Held me of what might come. 

When they were laid, 
Oh, wretched me, my dear, my well-loved sons ! 
Within the royal sepulchre, the sun 
Had set, and in his stead the rising moon, 
Behind some lofty mountain-peak concealed, 
Filled all with ghastly twilight. As v/e knelt, 
The people all withdrawn a little space, 
I and my daughters in that place of death, 
I lifted up my suppliant voice, and they 
With sweet girl voices pure, and soaring hymn, 
To the great Powers above. 

But when at last 
I heard my hollow voice pleading alone 
And all the others silent, then I looked. 
And on the tomb the cold malignant moon. 
Bursting with pale chill beams of light, revealed 
My fair girls kneeling mute and motionless, 



Niobe. 63 

Their dead eyes turned to the unpitying orb, 
Their white lips which should offer prayer no more. 

Such vengeance wreaked Phoebus and Artemis 

Upon a too proud mother. But on me 

Who only sinned no other punishment 

They took, only the innocent lives I loved — 

If any punishment, indeed, were more 

Than this to one who had welcomed death. I think 

My children happier far in death than I 

Who live to muse on these things. When my girls 

Were buried, I, my lonely palace gate 

Leaving without a tear, sped hither in haste 

To this high rock of Sipylus where erst 

My father held his court; and here, long years, 

Summer and winter, stay I, day and night 

Gazing towards the far-off plain of Thebes, 

Wherein I was so happy of old time, 



64 Songs Ufisung. 



Wherein I sinned and suffered. Turned to stone 
They thought me, and 'tis true the mother's heart 
^ Which knows such grief as I knew, turns to stone, 
And all her life ; and pitying Zeus, indeed, 
Seeing my repentance, listened to my prayer 
And left me seeming stone, but still the heart 
Of the mother grows not hard, and year by year 
When comes the summer with its cloudless skies, 
And the high sun lights hill and plain by day. 
And the moon, shining, silvers them by night. 
My old grief, rising dew-like to my eyes, 
Quickens my life with not unhappy tears. 
And through my penitent and yearning heart 
I feel once more the pulse of love and grief : 
Love triumphing at last o'er Fate and Death, 
Grief all divine and vindicating Love. 



PICTURES— II. 

A LURID sunset, red as blood, 
Firing a sombre, haunted wood ; 
And from the shadows, dark and fell, 
One hurrying wdth the face of Hell. 



Two at a banquet board alone, 
In dalliance, the feast being done. 
And one behind the arras stands. 
Grasping an axe with quivering hands. 



A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring ; 
Gay butterflies upon the wing ; 

F 



66 Songs Unsung. 

Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free, 
The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea. 



A clustering hill-town, climbing white 
From the grey olives up the height, 
And on the inland summits high 
Thin waters spilt as from the sky. 



A rain-swept moor at shut of day. 
And by the dead unhappy way 
A lonely child untended lies : 



Against the West a wretch who flies. 



Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned hall 
And one worn face, which loathes it all ; 



Pictures — //. 6 7 



In his ringed hand a vial, while 
The grey lips wear a ghastly smile. 



Corinthian pillars fine, which stand 
In moonlight on a desert sand ; 
Others o'erthrown, in whose dark shade 
Some fire-eyed brute its lair has made. 



Mountainous clouds embattled high 
Around a dark blue lake of sky ; 
And firom its clear depths, shining far, 
The calm eye of the evening star. 



A moonlight chequered avenue ; 
Above, a starlit glimpse of blue : 
Amid the shadows spread between, 
The grey ghost of a woman seen. 



A NIGHT IN NAPLES. 

This is the one night in all the year 
When the faithful of Naples who love their priest 
May find their faith and their wealth increased ; 
For just as the stroke of midnight is here, 

Those who with faithful undoubting mind 
Their " Aves " mutter, their rosaries tell, 
They without doubt shall a recompence find ; 
Yea, their faith indeed shall profit them well. 

Therefore, to-night, in the hot thronged street 
By San Gennaro's, the people devout, 
With banner, and relic, and thurible meet. 
With some sacred image to marshal them out. 



A Night in Naples. 69 

For a few days hence, the great lottery 

Of the sinful city declared will be, 

And it may be that Aves and Paters said 

Will bring some aid from the realms of the dead. 

And so to the terrible place of the tomb 
They go forth, a pitiful crowd, through the gloom, 
To where all the dead of the city decay. 
Waiting the trump of the judgment day. 

For every day of the circling year 

Brings its own sum of corruption here ; 

Every day has its great pit, fed 

With the dreadful heap of the shroudless dead. 

And behind a grated rust-eaten door, 
Marked each with their fated month and day, 
The young and the old, who in life were poor, 
Fester together and rot away. 



yo Songs Unsung. 

Silence is there, the silence of death, 
And in silence those poor pilgrims wearily pace, 
And the wretched throng, pitiful, holding its breath, 
Comes with shuffling steps to the dreadful place. 

Till before these dark portals, the silent crowd 
Breaks at length into passionate suffrages loud, 
Waiting the flickering vapour thin, 
Bred of the dreadful corruption within. 

And here is a mother who kneels, not in woe. 
By the vault where her child was flung months ago ; 
And there is a strong man who peers with dry eyes 
At ihe mouth of the gulph where his dead wife lies. 

Till at last, to reward them, a faint blue fire, 
Like the ghost of a soul, flickers here or there \ 

At the gate of a vault, on the noisome air, j 

And the wretched throng has its low desire ; 



A Night in Naples. 71 

And with many a praise of the favouring saint, 

And curses if any refuses to heed, 

Full of low hopes and of sordid greed, 

To the town they file backward, weary and faint. 

And a few days hence, the great lottery 

Of the sinful city declared will be. 

And a number thus shewn to those sordid eyes, 

May, the saints being willing, attain the prize. 

Wherefore to Saint and Madonna be said, 

All praise and laud, and the faithful dead. 
***** 

It was long, long ago, in far-off Judaea, 

That they slew Him of old, whom these slay to-day ; 

They slew Him of old, in far-off Judaea, — 

It is long, long ago ; it was far, far away ! 



LIFE. 

Like to a star, or to a fire, 

Which ever brighter grown, or higher, 

Doth shine forth fixed, or doth aspire ; 

Or to a glance, or to a sigh ; 
Or to a low wind whispering by, 
Which scarce has risen ere it die ; 

Or to a bird, whose rapid flight 
Eludes the dazed observer's sight, 
Or a stray shaft of glancing light. 

That breaks upon the gathered gloom 
Which veils some monumental tomb ; 
Or some sweet Spring flowers' fleeting bloom ;- 



Life. 73 

Mixed part of reason, part belief. 

Of pain and pleasure, joy and grief, 

As changeful as the Spring, and brief ; — 

A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife, 
With change on change for ever rife : — 
This is the thing we know as life. 



CRADLED IN MUSIC. 

A BRIGHT young mother, day by day, 
y/'' I meet upon the crowded way, 

Who turns her dark eyes, deep and mild, 
Upon her little sleeping child. 

For on the organ laid asleep. 

In childish slumbers hght, yet deep, 

Calmly the little infant lies ; 

The long fair lashes veil its eyes, y 

There, o'er its childish slumbers sweet, 
The winged hours pass with rapid feet ; 
Far off the music seems to cheer 
The child's accustomed drowsy ear. 



Cradled in Alusic. 75 

Hymn tune and song tune, grave and gay, 
Float round him all the joyous day ; 
And, half remembered, faintly seem 
To mingle with his happy dream. 

Poor child, o'er whose head all day long 
Our dull hours slip by, winged with song ; 
Who sleeps for half the tuneful day, 
And wakes 'neath loving looks to play ; 

Whose innocent eyes unconscious see 
Nothing but mirth in misery. 
The mother smiles, the sister stands 
Smiling, the tambour in her hands. 

And with the time of hard-earned rest, 
'Tis his to press that kindly breast ; 
Nor dream of all the toil, the pain, 
The weary round begun again, — 



76 Son OS Unstmg. 



The fruitless work, the blow, the curse. 
The hunger, the contempt, or worse ; 
The laws despite, the vague alarms, 
Which pass not those protecting arms. 

Only, as yet, 'tis his to know 
The bright young faces all aglow. 
As down the child-encumbered street 



The music stirs the lightsome feet. 



Only to crow and smile, as yet. 
Soon shall come clouds, and cold, and wet ; 
And where the green leaves whisper now. 
The mad East flinging sleet and snow. 

And if to childhood he shall come — 
Childhood that knows not hearth or home, — 
Coarse words maybe, and looks of guile, 
Shall chase away that constant smile. 



Cradled in Music. yj 

Were it not better, child, than this, 

The burden of full life to miss ; ^ 

And now, while yet the time is May, 

Amid the music pass away. 

And leave these tuneless strains of wrong 
For the immortal ceaseless song ; 
And change this vagrant life of earth 
For the unchanged celestial birth ; 

And see, within those opened skies, 
A vision of thy mother's eyes ; 
And hear those old strains, faint and dim. 
Grown fine, within the eternal hymn ? 

Nay, whatsoe'er our thought may deem, 
Not that is better which may seem ; 
'Twere better that thou camest to be, 
If Fate so willed, in misery. 



yS Sony's Unsung. 

What shall be, shall be — that is all ; 

To one great Will we stand and fall. 

'' The Scheme hath need " — we ask not why, 

And in this faith we live and die. 



ODATIS. 



AN OLD LOVE-TALE. 



Chares of Mytilene, ages gone, 
When the young Alexander's conquering star 
Flamed on the wondering world, being indeed 
The comrade of his arms, from the far East 
Brought back this story of requited love. 



A Prince there was of Media, next of blood 
To the great King Hystaspes, fair of form 
As brave of soul, who to his flower of age 
Was come, but never yet had known the dart 
Of Cypris, being but a soldier bold, 
Too much by trenched camps and wars' alarms 
Engrossed, to leave a thought for things of love. 



8o Songs Unsttng, 



Now, at this selfsame time, by Tanais 
Omartes ruled, a just and puissant king. 
No son was his, only one daughter fair, 
Odatis, of whose beauty and whose worth 
Fame filled the furthest East. Only as yet, 
Of all the suitors for her hand, came none 
Who touched her maiden heart ; but, fancy free, 
She dwelt unwedded, lonely as a star. 

Till one fair night in springtide, when the heart 
Blossoms as does the earth, Cypris, the Queen, 
Seeing that love is sweet for all to taste, 
And pitying these loveless parted lives. 
Deep in the sacred silence of the night. 
From out the ivory gate sent down on them 
A happy dream, so that the Prince had sight 
Of fair Odatis in her diadem 
And habit as she lived, and saw the charm 



Odatis. 8 1 



And treasure of her eyes, and knew her name 
And country as it was ; while to the maid 
There came a like fair vision of the Prince 
Leading to fight the embattled Median hosts, 
Young, comely, brave, clad in his panoply 
And pride of war, so strong, so fair, so true, 
That straight, the virgin coldness of her soul 
Melted beneath the vision, as the snow 
In springtime at the kisses of the sun. 

And when they twain awoke to common day 
From that blest dream, still on their tranced eyes 
The selfsame vision lingered. He a form 
Lovelier than all his life had known, more pure 
And precious than all words ; she a strong soul 
Yet tender, comely with the fire, the force 
Of youthful manhood ; saw both night and day 



82 Songs Unsung. 



Nor ever from their mutual hearts the form 
Of that celestial vision waned nor grew 
Faint with the daily stress of common life, 

As do our mortal phantasies, but still 
He, while the fiery legions clashed and broke, 
Saw one sweet face above the flash of spears ; 
She in high palace pomps, or household tasks. 
Or 'mid the glittering courtier-crowded halls 
Saw one brave ardent gaze, one manly form. 

Now while in dreams of love these lovers lived 
Who never met in waking hours, who knew not 
Whether with unrequited love they burned, or whether 
In mutual yearnings blest ; the King Omartes, 
Grown anxious for his only girl, and knowing 
How blest it is to love, would bid her choose 
Whom she would wed, and summoning the maid. 
With fatherly counsels pressed on her ; but she : 



Odatis. 83 

" Father, I am but young; I pray you, ask not 
That I should wed ; nay, rather let me live 
My life within your house. I cannot wed. 
I can love only one, who is the Prince 
Of Media, but I know not if indeed 
His love is his to give, or if he know 
My love for him ; only a heavenly vision. 
Sent in the sacred silence of the night, 
Revealed him to me as I know he is. 
Wherefore, my father, though thy will be law. 
Have pity on me ; let me love my love, 
If not with recompense of love, alone ; 
For I can love none else." 

Then the King said : 
'' Daughter, to me thy happiness is life, 
And more ; but now, I pray thee, let my words 
Sink deep within thy mind. Thou canst not know 
If this strange vision through the gate of truth 



84 Songs Unsung. 

Came or the gate of error. Oftentimes 

The gods send strong delusions to ensnare 

Too credulous hearts. Thou canst not know, in sooth, 

If 'twas the Prince thou saw'st, or, were it he, 

If love be his to give ; and if it were, 

I could not bear to lose thee, for indeed 

I have no son to take my place, or pour 

Libations on my tomb, and shouldst thou wed 

A stranger, and be exiled from thy home, 

What were my life to me ? Nay, daughter, dream 

No more, but with some chieftain of my realm 

Prepare thyself to wed. With the new moon 

A solemn banquet will I make, and bid 

Whate'er of high descent and generous youth 

Our country holds. There shalt thou make thy choice 

Of whom thou wilt, nor will I seek to bind 

Thy unfettered will ; only I fain would see thee 

In happy wedlock bound, and feel the touch 



Odatis. 85 

Of childish hands again, and soothe my age 
With sight of thy ^ir offspring round my knees." 

Then she, because she loved her sire and fain 

Would do his will, left him without a word, 

Obedient to his hest j but day and night 

The one unfading image of her dream 

Filled all her longing sight, and day and night 

The image of her Prince in all the pride 

And bravery of battle shone on her. 

Nor was there any strength in her to heal 

The wound which love had made, by reasonings cold, 

Or musing on the phantasies of love ; 

But still the fierce dart of the goddess burned 

Within her soul, as when a stricken deer 

O'er hill and dale escaping bears with her 

The barb within her side ; and oft alone 

Within her secret chamber she would name 



86 Songs Unsung, 

The name of him she loved, and oft by night, 
When sleep had bound her fast, her pale lips formed 
The syllables of his name. Through the long hours, 
Waking or sleeping, were her thoughts on him ; 
So that the unfilled yearning long deferred 
Made her heart sick, and like her heart, her form 
Wasted, her fair cheek paled, and from her eyes 
Looked out the silent suffering of her soul. 

Now, when the day drew near which brought the feast, 

One of her slaves, who loved her, chanced to hear 

Her sweet voice wandering in dreams, and caught 

The Prince's name ; and, being full of grief 

And pity for her pain, and fain to aid 

The gentle girl she loved, made haste to send 

A messenger to seek the Prince and tell him 

How he was loved, and when the feast should be, 

And how the King would have his daughter wed. 



Odatis. 8 7 

But to the Princess would she breathe no word 
Of what was done, till, almost on the eve 
Of the great feast, seeing her wan and pale 
And all unhappy, falling at her knees, 
She, with a prayer for pardon, told her all. 

But when the Princess heard her, virgin shame — 
Love drawing her and Pride of Maidenhood 
In opposite ways till all distraught was she — 
Flushed her pale cheek, and fired her tearful eyes. 
Yet since she knew that loving thought alone 
Prompted the deed, being soft and pitiful. 
She bade her have no fear, and though at first 
Unwilling, by degrees a newborn hope 
Chased all her shame away, and once again 
A long unwonted rose upon her cheek 
Bloomed, and a light long vanished fired her eyes. 



88 Songs Unsung, 



Meanwhile upon the plains in glorious war 

The brave Prince led his conquering hosts ; but 

still, 
Amid the shock of battle and the crash 
Of hostile spears, one vision filled his soul. 
Amid the changes of the hard-fought day, 
Throughout the weary watches of the night, 
The dream, the happy dream, returned again. 
Always the selfsame vision of a maid 
Fairer than earthly, filled his eyes and took 
The savour from the triumph, ay, and touched 
The warrior's heart with an unwonted ruth, 
So that he shrank as never yet before 
From every day's monotony of blood, 
And saw with unaccustomed pain the sum 
Of death and pain, and hopeless shattered lives. 
Because a softer influence touched his soul. 



Odatis, 89 



Till one night, on the day before the feast 
Which King Omartes destined for his peers, 
While now his legions swept their conquering way 
A hundred leagues or more from Tanais, 
There came the message from the slave, and he 
Within his tent, after the well-fought day, 
Resting with that fair image in his eyes, 
Woke suddenly to know that he was loved. 

Then, in a moment, putting from him sleep 
And well-earned rest, he bade his charioteer 
Yoke to his chariot three unbroken colts 
Which lately o'er the endless Scythian plain 
Careered, untamed ; and, through the sleeping camp, 
Beneath the lucid aspect of the night, 
He sped as speeds the wind. The great stars hung 
Like lamps above the plain ; the great stars sank 
And faded in the dawn ; the hot red sun 



90 Songs Unsung. 

Leapt from the plain ; noon faded into eve ; 

Again the same stars lit the lucid night ; 

And still, with scarce a pause, those fierce hoofs dashed 

Across the curved plain onward, till he saw 

Far off the well-lit palace casements gleam 

Wherein his love was set. 

Then instantly 
He checked his panting team, the rapid wheels 
Ceased, and his mail and royal garb he hid 
Beneath a white robe such as nobles use 
By Tanais \ and to the lighted hall 
He passed alone, afoot, giving command 
To him who drove, to await him at the gate. 

Now, when the Prince drew near the vestibule, 
The feast long time had sped, and all the guests 
Had eaten and drunk their fill ; and he unseen. 
Through the close throng of serving men and maids 



r 



Odatis. 9 t 



Around the door, like some belated guest 
To some obscurer station slipped, and took 
The wine-cup with the rest, who marvelled not 
To see him come, nor knew him ; only she 
Who sent the message whispered him a word : 
" Have courage ; she is there, and cometh soon. 
Be brave ; she loves thee only ; watch and wait. 



11 



Even then the King Omartes, where he sate 

On high among his nobles, gave comm^and 

To summon from her maiden chamber forth 

The Princess. And obedient to the call. 

Robed in pure white, clothed round with maiden shame, 

Full of vague hope and tender yearning love. 

To the high royal throne Odatis came. 

And when the Prince beheld the maid, and saw 
The wonder which so long had filled his soul — 



92 Songs Unsung. 



His vision of the still night clothed with life 

And breathing earthly air — and marked the heave 

Of her white breast, and saw the tell-tale flush 

Crimson her cheek with maiden modesty, 

Scarce could his longing eager arms forbear 

To clasp the virgin round, so fair she seemed. 

But, being set far down from where the King 

Sat high upon the dais 'midst the crowd 

Of eager emulous faces looking love, 

None marked his passionate gaze, or stretched-forth hands; 

Till came a pause, which hushed the deep-drawn sigh 

Of admiration, as the jovial King, 

Full tender of his girl, but flushed with wine, 

Spake thus to her : 

" Daughter, to this high feast 
Are bidden all the nobles of our land. 
Now, therefore, since to wed is good, and life 
To the unwedded woman seems a load 



Odatis. 9 3 

Which few may bear, and none desire, I prithee, 
This jewelled chalice taking, mingle wine 
As well thou knowest, and the honeyed draught 
Give to some noble youth of those thou seest 
Along the well-ranged tables, knowing well 
That him to whom thou givest, thou shalt wed. 
I fetter not thy choice, girl. I grow old ; 
I have no son to share the weight of rule, 
And fain would see thy children ere I die." 

Then, with a kiss upon her blushing cheek, 
He gave the maid the cup. The cressets' light 
Fell on the jewelled chalice, which gave back 
A thousand answering rays. Silent she stood 
A moment, half in doubt, then down the file 
Of close-ranked eager faces flushed with hope, 
And eyes her beauty kindled more than wine. 
Passed slow, a breathing statue. Her white robe 



94 Songs Unsung. 



Among the purple and barbaric gold 

Showed like the snowy plumage of a dove, 

As down the hall, the cup within her hands, 

She, now this way regarding and now that, 

Passed, with a burning blush upon her cheek ; 

And on each youthful noble her large eyes 

Rested a moment only, icy cold. 

Though many indeed were there, brave, fair to see, 

Fit for a maiden's love ; but never at all 

The one o'ermastering vision of her dream 

Rose on her longing eyes, till hope itself 

Grew faint, and, ere she gained the end, she turned 

Sickening to where, along the opposite wall, 

Sate other nobles young and brave as those, 

But not the fated vision of her dream. 

Meanwhile the Prince, who ^mid the close-set throns: 
Of humbler guests was hidden, saw her come 



Odatis, 95 

And turn ere she had marked him, and again 
Down the long Une of princely revellers 
Pass slow as in a dream ; and all his soul 
Grew sick with dread lest haply, seeing not 
The one expected face, and being meek 
And dutiful, and reverencing her sire, 
She in despair might make some sudden choice 
And leave him without love. And as she went 
He could not choose but gaze, as oft in sleep 
Some dreadful vision chains us that we fail 
To speak or move, though to be still is death. 
And once he feared that she had looked on him 
And passed, and once he thought he saw her pause 
By some tall comely youth ; and then she reached 
The opposite end, and as she turned her face 
And came toward him again and where the jars 
Of sweet wine stood for mingling, with a bound 
His heart went out to her ; for now her cheek 



\ 



96 Songs Unsung. 

Pale as the white moon saihng through the sky, 
And the dead hope within her eyes, and pain 
And hardly conquered tears, made sure his soul. 
Knowing that she was his. 

But she, dear heart. 
Being sick indeed with love, and in despair, 
Yet reverencing her duty to her sire, 
Turned half-distraught to fill the fated cup 
And with it mar her life. 

But as she stood 
Alone within the vestibule and poured 
The sweet wine forth, slow, trembling, blind with tears, 
A voice beside her whispered, " Love, I am here ! " 
And looking round her, at her side she saw 
A youthful mailed form — the festal robe 
Flung backward, and the face, the mouth, the eyes 
Whereof the vision filled her night and day. 



/■ 



Odatis. 9 7 

Then straight, without a word, with one deep sigh, 
She held the wine-cup forth. He poured forth first 
Libation to the goddess, and the rest 
Drained at a draught, and cast his arms round her, 
And down the long-drawn sounding colonnade 
Snatched her to where without, beneath the dawn, 
The brave steeds waited and the charioteer. 
His robe he round her threw ; they saw the flare 
Of torches at the gate j they heard the shouts 
Of hot pursuit grow fainter ; till at last, 
In solitude, across the rounding plain 
They flew through waking day, until they came 
To Media, and were wed. And soon her sire, 
Knowing their love, consented, and they lived 
Long happy lives ; such is the might of Love. 



That is the tale the soldier from the East, 
Chares of Mytilene, ages gone, 

H 



98 Songs Unsung, 



Told oftentimes at many a joyous feast 
In Hellas ; and he said that all the folk 
In Media -loved it, and their painters limned 
The story in the temples of their gods, 
And in the stately palaces of kings, 
Because they reverenced the might of Love. 



IN WILD WALES. 

I. 
AT THE EISTEDDFOD. 

The close-ranked faces rise, 

With their watching, eager eyes, 

And the banners and the mottoes blaze above ; 

And without, on either hand. 

The eternal mountains stand, 
And the salt sea river ebbs and flows again. 
And through the thin-drawn bridge the wandering winds 
complain. 

Here is the Congress met, 

The bardic senate set, 

And young hearts flutter at the voice of fate , 



I oo Songs Unsung. 



All the fair August day- 
Song echoes, harpers play, 

And on the unaccustomed ear the strange 

Penillion rise and fall through change and counter-change. 

Oh Mona, land of song ! 

Oh mother of Wales ! how long 

From thy dear shores an exile have I been ! 

Still from thy lonely plains, 

Ascend the old sweet strains, 
And at the mine, or plough, or humble home, 
The dreaming peasant hears diviner music come. 

This innocent, peaceful strife, 

This struggle to fuller life. 

Is still the one delight of Cymric souls — 

Swell, blended rhythms ! still 

The gay pavilions fill. 



At the Eisteddfod. loi 



Soar, oh young voices, resonant and fair ; 

Still let the sheathed sword gleam above the bardic chair. 



The Menai ebbs and flows, 

And the song-tide wanes and goes, 

And the singers and the harp-players are dumb ; 

The eternal mountains rise 

Like a cloud upon the skies, 
And my heart is full of joy for the songs that are still. 
The deep sea and the soaring hills, and the steadfast 
Omnipotent Will. 



IL 

AT THE MEETING FIELD. 

Here is the complement of what I saw 
When late I sojourned in the halls of song, 

The greater stronger Force, the higher Law, 
Of those which carry Cymric souls along. 



No dim Cathedral's fretted aisles were there, 
No gay pavilion fair, with banners hung : 
The eloquent pleading voice, the deep hymns sung, 

The bright sun, and the clear unfettered air, 

These were the only ritual, this the fane, 
A poor fane doubtless and a feeble rite 
For those who find religion in dim light. 

Strange vestments, incensed air, and blazoned pane. 



At the Meeting Field. 103 

But the rapt crowd, the reverent mute throng, 
When the vast listening semi-circle round, 

Rang to the old man's voice serenely strong, 
Or swept along in stormy bursts of sound. 

Where found we these in temples made with hands ? 

Where the low moan which marks the awakened soul ? 

Where, this rude eloquence whose strong waves roll 
Deep waters, swift to bear their Lord's commands ? 

Where found we these ? 'neath what high fretted dome ? 

I know not. I have knelt 'neath many, yet 
Have heard few words so rapt and burning come. 

Nor marked so many eyes divinely wet. 

As here I knew — " What will you do, oh friends. 
When hfe ebbs fast and the dim light is low, 

When sunk in gloom the day of pleasure ends, 
And the night cometh, and your being runs slow, 



1 04 Songs Unsung. 

And nought is left you of your revelries, 

Your drunken days, your wantonness, your ill — 
And lo ! the last dawn rises cold and chill, 

And lo ! the lightning of All-seeing eyes, 

What will you do ? " And when the low voice ceased, 
And from the gathered thousands surged the hymn, 
Some strong power choked my voice, my eyes grew dim, 

I knew that old man eloquent, a priest. 

There is a consecration not of man. 

Nor given by laid-on hands nor acted rite, 

A priesthood fixed since the firm earth began, 
A dedication to the eye of Light, 

And this is of them. What the form of creed 
I care not, hardly the fair tongue I know, 

But this I know that when the concourse freed 
From that strong influence, went sedate and slow, 



B| At the Meeting Field. 



105 



1^' 



I thought when on the Gahlean shore 

By the Great Priest the multitudes were led, 

The bread of life, miraculously more, 
Sufficed for all who came, and they were fed. 



SUFFRAGES. 

" Surely," said a voice, " O Lord, Thy judgments 

Are dreadful and hard to understand. 

Thy laws which Thou madest, they withstand Thee, 

They stand against Thee and Thy command ' 

Thy poor, they are with us evermore ; 

They suffer terrible things and sore ; 

They are starved, they are sick, they die. 

And there is none to help or heed ; 

They come with a great and bitter cry 

They hardly dare to whisper, as they plead ; 

And there is none to hear them, God or man; 

And it is little indeed that all our pity can." 

What, and shall I be moved to tears. 



Suffrages, 107 



As I sit in this still chamber here alone, 

By the pity of it, — the childish lives that groan, 

The miseries and the sorrows, the hopes and the fears 

Of this wonderful legend of life, that is one and the same 

Though it differ in weal and in happiness, honour and 

fame, — 
Shall I turn, who am no more than a worm, to Thee, 
From the pity of it — the want, the misery, 
And with strong yearnings beat, and rebellions wild. 
Seeing death written, and pain, in the face of a child ; — 
And yet art Thou unmoved ! 

Ah, Lord, if Thou sawest surely ! — and yet Thou dost see ; 
And if Thou knewest indeed I — and yet all things are 

clear to Thee. 

For, Lord, of a truth Thy great ones, 

Who have not their wealth of their own desert. 

Live ever equal lives and sure. 



io8 Songs Unsung, 

And are never vexed nor suffer hurt, 

But through long untroubled years endure 

Until they join Thee, and are in bliss ; 

Or, maybe, are carried away from Thee, and miss 

Thy Face, which is too pure for them to see, 

And are thenceforth in misery : 

But, nevertheless, upon the earth 

They come to neither sorrow nor dearth. 

They are great, and they live out their lives, and Thou 

lettest them be ; 
Thou dost not punish them here, if they despise 
Thy poor and pass them by with averted eyes. 
They are strong and mighty, and never in danger to fall ; 
But Thou, Lord, art mighty and canst, and yet carest 

not at all. 

But wherefore is it that such things are ; — 
That want and famine, and blood and war 



Stiffrages. 109 



Are everywhere, and do prevail ? 

And wherefore is it the same monotonous tale 

Is ever told by the lips of men ? 

For there is hardly so hard a heart 

In the breast of a man who has taken his part 

In the world, and has little children around his knees, 

But is filled with great love for them as Thou art for these, 

And would give his life for their good, and is filled day 

and night 
With fatherly thoughts of fear and yearning for right, 
And grows sick, if evil come nigh them body or soul, 
And yet is but a feeble thing, without strength or control. 
But Thou art almighty for good ; yet Thy plagues, they 

come, 
Hunger and want and disease, in a terrible sum ; 
And the poor fathers waste, and are stricken with slow 

decay; 
And the children fall sick, and are starving, day after day ; 



1 1 o Songs Unsung. 

And the hospital wards are choked ; and the fire and the 

flood 
Vex men still, and the leaguered cities are bathed in blood. 

Ay, yet not the less, O Lord, 

I know Thou art just and art good indeed. 

This is it that doth perplex my thought, 

So that I rest not content in any creed. 

If I knew that Thou wert the Lord of 111, 

Then were I untouched still, 

And, if I would, might worship at Thy shrine ; 

Or if my mind might prove no Will Divine 

Inspired the dull mechanical reign of Law. 

But now, while Thou art surely, and art good. 

And wouldst Thy creatures have in happiness, 

Alway the sword, the plague prevail no less, 

Not less, not less Thy laws are based in blood. 

And such deep inequalities of lot 

Confuse our thought, as if Thy hand were not. 



Suffrages. 1 1 1 



All blessings, health and wealth and honours spent 

On some unworthy sordid instrument ; 

Thy highest gift of genius flung away 

On some vile thing of meanest clay, 

Who fouls the ingrate lips, touched with Thy fire, 

With worse than common mire : 

How should I fail alone, when all things groan. 

To let my weak voice take a pleading tone ! 

How should I speak a comfortable word 

When such things are, O Lord ! 

This is the cry that goes up for ever 

To Heaven from weak and striving souls : 

But the calm Voice makes answer to them never ; 

The undelaying chariot onward rolls. 

But another voice : O Lord of all, I bless Thee, 
I bless Thee and give thanks for all. 



112 Songs Unsu7ig. 



Thou hast kept me from my childhood up, 

Thou hast not let me fall. 

All the fair days of my youth 

Thou wast beside, me and Thy truth. 

I bless Thee that Thou didst withhold 

The blight of fame, the curse of gold ; 

Because Thou hast spared my soul as yet, 

Amid the wholesome toil of each swift day. 

The tumult and the fret 

Which carry worldly lives from Thee away. 

I thank Thee for the sorrows Thou hast sent, 

Being in all things content 

To see in every loss a greater gain, 

A joy in every pain ; 

The losses I have known, since still I know 

Lives, hidden with Thee, are and grow. 

I do not know, I cannot tell, 

How it may be, yet death and pain are well : 



Stiffi^ages. 1 1 3 



I know that Thou art good and mild, 

Though sickness take and break the helpless child ; 

'Twas Thou, none else, that gav'st the mother's love, 

And even her anguish came from Thee above. 

I am content to be that which Thou wilt : 

Tho' humble be my pathway and obscure. 

Yet from all stain of guilt 

Keep Thou me pure. 

Or if Thy evil still awhile must find 

Its seat within my mind, 

Be it as Thou wilt, I am not afraid. 

And for the world Thy hand has made, 

Thy beautiful world, so wondrous fair : 

Thy mysteries of dawn, Thy unclouded days ; 

Thy mountains, soaring high through Thy pure air ; 

Thy glittering sea, sounding perpetual praise j 

Thy starlit skies whence worlds unnumbered gaze ; 



1 1 4 Songs Uns2ing. 



Thy earth, which in Thy bounteous summer-tide 
Is clad in flowery robes and glorified ; 
Thy still primeval forests, deeply stirred 
By Thy great winds as by an unknown word ; 
Thy fair, light-winged creatures, blithe and free ; 
Thy dear brutes living, dying, silently : 
Shall I from them no voice to praise Thee find ? 
Thy praise is hymned by every balmy wind 
That wanders o'er a wilderness of flowers ; 
By every happy brute which asks not why, 
But rears its brood and is content to die. 
From Thee has come whatever good is ours ; — 
The gift of love that doth exalt the race ; 
The gift of childhood with its nameless grace ; 
The gift of age which slow through ripe decay, 
Like some fair fading sunset dies away ; 
The gift of homes happy with honest wealth, 
And fair lives flowering in unbroken health, — 



Suffrages, 1 1 5 



All these are Thine, and the good gifts of brain, 
Which to heights greater than the earth can gain, 
And can our little minds project to Thee, 
Through Infinite Space — across Eternity. 
For these I praise Thy name ; but above all 
The precious gifts Thy bounteous hand lets fall, 
I praise Thee for the power to love the Right, 
Though Wrong awhile show fairer to the sight ; 
The power to sin, the dreadful power to choose 
The evil portion and the good refuse ; 
And last, when all the power of ill is spent, 
The power to seek Thy face and to repent. 

This is the answering cry that goes for ever 
To Heaven from blest contented souls : 
But the calm Voice makes answer to them never ; 
The undelaying chariot onward rolls. 



LOOK OUT, LOVE. 

Look out, O Love, across the sea : 
A soft breeze fans the summer night, 
The low waves murmur lovingly, 
And lo ! the fitful beacon's light. 

Some day perchance, when I am gone, 
And muse by far-off tropic seas, 
You may be gazing here alone. 
On starlit waves and skies like these. 

Or perhaps together, you and I, 
Alone, enwrapt, no others by, 
Shall watch again that fitful flame, 
And know that we are not the same. 



Look Otit, O Love. 117 

Or maybe we shall come no more, 
But from some unreturning shore, 
In dreams shall see that light again. 
And hear that starlit sea complain. 



SAINT CHRISTOPHER. 

Christopher ! There is many a name of Time 

Higher than this in pride and empery ; 

There is a name which like a diadem 

Sits on the imperial front, so that men still 

Bow down to Caesar ; — deathless names enough 

Of bard and sage, soldier and king, which seize 

Our thought, and in one moment bear us forth 

Across the immemorial centuries 

To Time's first dawns — a bright band set on high, 

Who watch the surging of the restless sea 

Whose waves are generations. Yet not one 

More strange and quaint and sweet than Christopher's, 

Who bare the Christ. 




Saint Christopher. 119 

In the expiring days 
Of the old heathen ages hved the man 
Who bore it first. The elder Pagan gods 
Were paling now, and from the darkling groves 
And hollow aisles of their resounding fanes 
The thin shapes fled for ever. A new God 
Awoke the souls of men ; and yet the shrines 
Of Aphrodite and of Phoebus still 
Drew their own votaries. The flower of faith, 
Plucked from its roots, and thrown aside to die. 
Is slow to wither, keeping some thin ghost 
And counterfeit of fairness, though the life 
Has fled for ever, and 'twas a dead thing 
To which the Pagan bowed. 

In the far East 
He served, a soldier. Nature, which so oft 
Is grudging of her blessings — mating now 
The sluggish brain and stalwart form, and now 



1 20 Songs Unstmg. 



Upon the cripple's limbs setting the crown 

Of godlike wisdom — gave with generous hand 

Beauty and force to this one, mighty limbs 

And giant strength, joined with the choicer gift 

Of thoughts which soar, and will which dares, and high 

Ambition which aspires and is fulfilled 

In riches and in honour. 

Every year 
Of prosperous manhood left him greater grown 
And mightier. Evermore the siren voice 
Of high adventure called o'er land and sea ; 
The magical voice, heard but by nobler souls. 
Which dulls all lower music. More than king 
This great knight-errant showed ; a king of men 
Who still before his strong eyes day and night 
Saw power shining star-like on the hills, 
And set his face to gain it. Luxury 
Held him nor sensual ease who was too great 




Saint Christopher, 121 

For silken fetters, a strong soul and hand 

Bent to a higher end than theirs, and touched 

To higher issues j a fair beacon set 

Upon a lordly hill above the marsh 

Of common life, but all the more laid bare 

To the beating of the whirlwind. 

Every soul 
Knows its particular weakness : so for him 
This great strong soul set in its pride of place ; 
The charm of Power worked like a spell ; high power 
Unchecked, untrammelled, fixed with none to rule 
Above it, this could bend the nobler soul 
Which naught might conquer. Over land and sea^ 
Hiring his mighty arm and strength, he fared 
To sovereign after sovereign, always seeking 
A stronger than the last : until at length 
He found a puissant prince, so high, so great, 
The strong sway held him, and he lived content 



12 2 Songs Unszmg. 

A sleeping soul, not knowing good or ill, 

Resting in act, and with it satisfied — 

A careless striving soul who sought no more. 

But midst the miry ways of this sad world, 

As now he fared unmoved, the frequent sight 

Of evil ; the blind rage which takes and sways 

The warrior after battle till he quench 

His thirst in blood and torture ; the great pain 

Which everywhere cries heavenward, every day 

With unregarded suffrage ; the foul wrongs 

Which are done on earth for ever ; the dark sins 

Sinned and yet unrequited ; the great sum 

And mystery of Evil, worked on him 

Not to allure, not to repel, but only 

With that strange spell of power which knows to take 

The strong soul captive. Here was power enough. 

Mightier than mortal strength. The greatest king 



Saint Christopher. 123 

Whom ever he had served compared with this 

Showed puny as a child ; this power which took 

The mightiest in chains, now forcing them 

To wrong and blood and ill, now binding them 

With adamant chains within the sensual sty 

Where they lay bound for ever. Here was force 

To limit Heaven itself. So this strong soul 

Bowed to it, taking Evil for his lord, 

A voluntary thrall. Yet not to him 

The smooth foul ways of sense, the paths of wrong, 

Brought pleasure of themselves ; only to know 

The unrestrained passion surge, a beat 

Of satisfied life, the glory and the glow 

Of full untempered being. And so long time 

He served the Lord of Evil : deeds of wrong 

And anger, deeds of soft and sensual sin, 

All these he knew, a careless satisfied soul, 

So that for dread of him men named his name 



124 Songs Unsung, 

"The unrighteous;" but he cared not : power and fame 
Sufficed him long, and hid from him the fashion 
Of his own life and by what perilous ways 
He walked, and by what fathomless black seas, 
Abysmal deeps, and treacherous gulphs of 111. 

Till one day as they wandered (so the tale) 

Through a thick wood whence came no gleam of light 

To break the ghostly shadows —with amaze 

He saw his master the great Lord of 111 

Cower down as from a blow and hide his eyes 

From some white ghostly figure. As he gazed 

The old chains fell from him, and with a glance 

He rose up free for ever. For his soul 

Met that great symbol of all sacrifice 

Which men have worshipped since ; the soft sad eyes, 

The agonised limbs nailed to the Tree of Death 

Which is the Tree of Life ; and all the past 



Saint Christopher. 125 

Fell from him, and the mystery of Love 

And Death and Evil ; Might which gives itself 

To liberate the world and dying breaks 

The vanquished strength of Hell ; all these transformed 

His very being, and straightway the strong soul, 

Spurning his ancient chain, stood fair and free 

Alone, a moment with the scars of gyves 

Upon his neck and limbs, and then fell down 

Prostrate upon the earth, the mild eyes still 

Bent on him pitiful. There he lay stretched 

Through the long night of sorrow, till at last 

The sun rose on his soul, and on the earth, 

And the pure dawn returning brought the day. 

And when he rose the ancient mastery 
And thirst for power, springing anew in him, 
Once more, resistless, over land and sea 
Impelled him, seeking this new mightier Lord 



126 Songs Unstmg. 

Who broke the power of 111. So through all lands 

He passed, a passionate pilgrim, but found not 

The Prince he sought, only great princes, strong 

And valorous he found, who bowed them down 

Before the power of Evil ; but for them 

He took no thought, who had seen their master blench 

Before the Lord of Light ; but him indeed 

He saw not yet ; filled with the pride of life, 

A satisfied soul which bowed not down to wrong, 

Touched wdth desire for good, since good was strong, 

But loving strength alone. 

So as he fared 
He came upon a dark and stony land 
AVhere smiled no flower ; there, in a humble cell. 
There dwelt an aged man ; no other thing 
Of life was there, only wan age, which dwelt 
Upon the brink of death. The giant strength 
Was flagging now, while on the distant hills 



Saint Christopher. 127 

The sun was sinking and the gray of night 
Stole upward. Through the plain beneath the cell 
A broad black river raged, where was no bridge 
For travellers ; but a dark road stole to it 
O'ergloomed by cypress, and no boat was there 
Nor ferry, evermore beyond the shade 
Breast-high the strong stream roared by black as 
death. 

There sate he on the brink and saw no soul 

As he gazed on the stream of death. Great misery 

And weakness took him, and he laid him down 

On that cold strand. Till, when his heart beat slow 

And his life drooped, lo ! on the further shore 

The sunset, lingering for a moment, fired 

A thousand palace windows and the spires 

And domes of a fair city ; then the night 

Fell downward on them, but the unconquered soul 



12 8 Songs Uiisimg. 

Within the failing body leaped and knew 
That it had seen the city of the King. 

Then swooned he for awhile, and when he knew 
His life again he heard a reverend voice 
Speak through the gloom. And all the sun had set 
And all the hills were hidden. 

" Son, thou com'st 
To seek the Lord of Life. There is no way 
But through yon cruel river. Thou wert strong ; 
Take rest and thought till thy strength come to thee. 
Arise, the dawn is near." 

Then they twain went, 
And there that sick soul rested many days. 

And when the strong man's strength was come again, 

His old guide led him forth to where the road 

Sank in that black swift stream. The hills were dark, 



Saint Ch^dstophei^. 129 

There was no city to see, nought but thick cloud, 
And still that black flood roaring. Then he heard 
The old voice whisper, " Not of strength alone 
Come they who find the Master, but cast down 
And weak and wandering. Oftentimes with feet 
Wayworn and weary limbs, they come and pass 
The deeps and are transformed ; but he who comes 
Of his own strength from him long time the King 
Hides him as erst from thee. Yet, because strength 
Well used is a good gift, I bid thee plunge 
In yon cold stream, and seek to wash from thee 
The stains of life. No harm shall come to thee, 
Nor in those chill dark waters shall thy feet 
Slip, nor thy life be swallowed. It is thine 
To bear in thy strong arms the fainting souls 
Of pilgrims who press onward day and night 
Seeking the Lord of Light, Thou, who so long 
Didst serve the Lord of Evil, now shalt serve 

K 



1 30 Songs Unsung . 

A higher ; and because great penances 
Are fitting for great wrong, here shalt thou toil 
Long time till haply thou shalt lose the stain 
Of sense and of the world, then shall thy eyes 
See that thou wouldst. 

Go suffer and be strong." 

Then that strong soul, treading those stony ways, 
Went down into the waters. Painful souls 
Cried to him from the brink ; sad lives, which now 
Had reached their toilsome close ; worn wayfarers. 
Who after lifelong strivings and great pain 
And buffetings had gained the perilous stream 
With heaven beyond ; wan age and budding youth 
And childhood fallen untimely. He stooped down 
With wonder mixed with pity, raising up 
The weakling limbs, and bearing in his arms 
The heavy burden, through the chill dark depths 



Saint Ch7''istopher. 131 



Of those cold swirling waters without fear 

Strode onward. Oftentimes the dreadful force 

Of that resistless current, which had whelmed 

A lower soul, bore on him ; oftentimes 

The icy cold, too great for feebler hearts, 

Assailed him, yet his mighty stature still 

Strode upright through the deep to the far shore, 

And those poor pilgrims with reviving souls 

Blessed him, and left the waters and grew white 

And glorified, and in their eyes he knew 

A wonder and a rapture as they saw 

The palace of the King, the domes, the spires, 

The shining oriels sunlit into gold, 

The white forms on the brink to welcome them, 

And the clear heights, and the discovered heaven. 

But never on his eyes for all his toil 

That bright sun broke, nor those fair palace roofs 



132 Songs Unsung. 

As erst upon his weakness. Day and night 

The selfsame cloud hung heavy on the hills, 

Blotting the glorious vision. Day and night 

He laboured unrewarded, with no gleam 

Of that eternal glory, which yet shone 

Upon those fainting souls, whom his strong arms 

Bore upward. Day and night he laboured still. 

Amid the depths of death. Ay, he would rise 

At midnight, when the cry of fainting souls 

Called to him on the brink, and so go down 

Without one thought of fear. Yea, though the floods 

Roared horribly, and deep called unto deep, 

Through all those hidden depths he strode unmoved, 

A strong, laborious, unrewarded soul. 

Was it because the stain and blot of wrong 

Were on him still uncleansed } I cannot tell. 

The stain of ill eats deep, and nought can cleanse it, 



Saint Christopher. i ^ ^ 



oa 



Nay hardly tears of blood. But to my thought 

Not thus the legend runs ; rather I deem 

That what of good he loved was only strength, 

The pride of conscious Power — that which had led him 

To strong rude wrong, the same sense, working on him, 

Led him through weariness of wrong to use 

His strength for goodness. Oftentimes Remorse 

Comes not of hatred of the wrong, nor love 

Of the good, but rather from the shame which Pride 

Knows which has gone astray and spent itself 

Upon unworthy ends. So this strong soul 

Laboured on unfulfilled. Yet who shall trace 

By what hidden processes of waste and pain 

The great Will is fulfilled, and doth achieve 

The victory of Good ? 

So the slow years 
Passed, till the giant strength at times would flag 
A little, yet no feebleness was there, 



134 Songs Uitstmg. 



But still the strong limbs carried him unmoved 
Through those black depths of death. Till one still 

night, 
At midnight when the world was sunk in sleep, 
The summons came, " A Pilgrim ! " and he saw 
With a new-born compassion, on the shore 
A childish form await him j a soft smile 
Was on the lips, a sweet sad glance divine 
Within the eyes, as in a child's eyes oft 
Knowledge not earthly, infinite weakness, strive 
For mastery. As the strong man stooped and took 
The weakling to his breast, through the great might 
Of Pity, grown to strength, he took the deep 
With that light load in his arms. 

But as he went. 
The strength greater than human, the strong limbs 
Which bore long time unfaltering the great pain 
And burden of our life ; the fearless heart 



Saint Christopher. 135 



Which never blenched before, though the winds beat 
And all the night was blind ; these failed him now, 
And as by some o'erwhelming load dragged down, 
His flagging footsteps tottered ; the cold wave 
Rose higher around him, the once mighty head 
Bowed-down, the waters rising to his lip 
Engulfed in the depths; the weight of all the earth 
Seemed on his shoulders — all the sorrow, the sin. 
The burden of the Race — and a great cry 
Came from him, " Help ! 1 sink, I faint, I die, 
I perish beneath my burden ! Help, O King 
Of Heaven, for I am spent and can no more ! 
My strength is gone, the waters cover me, 
I stand not of myself. Help, Lord and King I " 

Then suddenly from his spent life he felt 

The great load taken ; through the midnight gloom 

There burst the glorious vision of his dream — 



136 Songs Unsung. 



The palace of the King, the domes, the spires. 
The shining oriels sunlit into gold, 
The heaven of heavens discovered , then a voice, 
" Rise, Christopher ! thou hast found thy King, and 

turn 
Back to the earth, for I have need of thee. 
Thou hast sustained the whole world, bearing me 
The Lord of Earth and Heaven. Rise, turn awhile 
To the old shore of Time ; I am the Prince 
Thou seekest ; I a little child, the King 
Of Earth and Heaven. I have marked thy toils, 
Labours, and sorrows ; I have seen thy sins, 
Thy tears, and thy repentance. Rise and be 
My servant always. And if thou shalt seek 
A sign of me, I give this sign to thee : 
Set thou thy staff to-night upon the verge 
Of these dark waters, and with early dawn 
Seek it, and thou shalt find it blossomed forth 




Saint Ch^Hstopher. 137 

Into such sweet white blooms as year by year 
The resurrection of the springtide brings 
To clothe the waste of winter. This shall be 
The sign of what has been." 

x'\nd that strong soul, 
Vanquished at length, obeyed, and with the dawn 
Where stood his staff there sprung the perfumed cup 
And petals of a lily : so the tale. 
Nay, but it was the rude strength of his soul 
Which blossomed into purity, and sprang 
Into a higher self, beneath the gaze 
Of a little child ! Nay, but it was the might 
Of too great strength, which laid its robes of pride 
Down on the ground, and stood, naked, erect. 
Before its Lord, shamefast yet beautiful ! 
Nay, but it was the old self, stripped and purged 
Of ingrained wrong, which from the stream of Death 



138 Songs Unsung. 

Stood painful on the stable earth again, 
And was regenerate through humility ! 

So for the remnant of his days he served 
The Lord of Goodness ; a strong staff of right 
Yet humble. Till the Pagan Governor 
Bade him deny the Prince who succoured him, 
And he refusing, gained a martyr's crown 
In cruel death, and is Saint Christopher ! 



PICTURES— m. 

The sad slow dawn of winter ; frozen trees 
And trampled snow within a lonely wood j 
One shrouded form, which to the city flees ; 
And one, a masquer, lying in his blood. 



A full sun blazing with unclouded day, 
Till the bright waters mingle with the sky ; 
And on the dazzling verge, uplifted high, 
White sails mysterious slowly pass away. 



1 40 Songs Unsung. 



Hidden in a trackless and primaeval wood, 
Long-buried temples of an unknown race, 
And one colossal idol \ on its face 
A changeless sneer, blighting the solitude. 



A fair girl half undraped, who blithely sings ; 
Her white robe poised upon one budding breast ; 
While at her side, invisible, unconfessed, 
Love folds her with the shelter of his wings. 



Black clouds embattled on a lurid sky, 
And one keen flash, like an awakened soul, 
Piercing the hidden depths, till momently 
One seems to hear enormous thunders roll. 



Pichu^es — ///. 141 

Two helpless girls upon a blazing wall, 

The keen flames leaping always high and higher ; 

But faster, faster than the hungry fire, 

Brave hearts which climb to save them ere they fall. 



A youthful martyr, looking to the skies 

From rack and stake, from torment and disgrace ; 

And suddenly heaven opened to his eyes, 

A beckoning hand, a tender heavenly face. 



A home on a fair English hill ; away 
Stretch undulating plains, of gold and green. 
With park and lake and glade, and homestead grey ; 
And crowning all, the blue sea dimly seen. 



14- Songs Unsit7tg. 



A lifeless, voiceless, world of age-long snow, 
Where the long winter creeps through endless night, 
And safe within a low hut's speck of light, 
Strong souls alert and hopeful, by the glow. 



A great ship forging slowly from the shore, 
And on the broad deck weeping figures bent ; 
And on the gliding pierhead, sorrow-spent, 
Those whom the voyagers shall see no more. 



CONFESSION. 

Who is there but at times has seen, 
While his past days before him stand, 
In all the chances which have been, 
The guidance of a hidden Hand, 

Which still has ruled his growing life, 
Through weal and woe, through joy and pain, 
Through fancied good, through useless strife. 
And empty pleasure sought in vain ; 

Which often has withheld the meed 
He longed for once, with yearnings blind, 
And given the truest prize indeed, 
The harvest of a blessed mind ; 



144- Sono-s Unsuiicr, 



i>" w ,.^.^,^^ 



^ 



And so has taken the common lot 

Content, whate'er the Ruler would, 

Since all that has been, or is not, 

Springs from a hidden root of good ? 

* * * * 

Yet some there are maybe to-day, 

Whose childhood at the mother's knee 

Was taught to bow itself and pray, 

Nor ever thirsted to be free, 

Who now, 'mid warring voices loud, 
Have lost the faith they held before, 
Nor through the jangling of the crowd 
Can hear the earlier message more. 

A brute Fate vexes them, the reign 
Of dumb laws, speeding onward still, 
Regardless of the waste and pain, 
Which all the labouring earth do fill. 



Confession. 145 



They look to see the rule of Right ; 
They find it not, and in its stead 
But slow survivals, born of Might, 
And all the early Godhead dead ; 

They see it not, and droop and faint 
And are unhappy, doubting God ; 
Yet every step their feet have trod 
Was trodden before them by a saint. 

^r ^p ^r *^ 

Oh, doubting soul, look up, behold 
The eternal heavens above thy head, 
The solid earth beneath, its mould 
Compacted of the unnumbered dead. 

Here the eternal problems grow, 
And with each day are solved and done, 
When some spent life, like melting snow, 
Breathes forth its essence to the sun. 



1 46 Songs Unsung. 

As death is, life is — without end ; 
Wrong with right mingles, joy with pain j 
Forbid two meeting streams to blend, 
'Twere not more hopeless, nor more vain. 

Though Death with Life, though Wrong with Right, 
Are bound within the scheme of things. 
Yet can our souls, on soaring wings, 
Gain to a loftier purer height. 

Where death is not, nor any life. 

Nor right nor wrong, nor joy nor pain ; 

But changeless Being, lacking strife, 

Doth through all change, unchanged remain. 

Should wrong prevail o'er all the earth, 
'Twere nought if only we discern 
The one great truth, which if we learn, 
All else beside is little worth. 



Confession. 147 



That Right, is that which must prevail, 
If not here, there, if not now, then. 
Is the one Truth which shall not fail, 
For all the doubt and fears of men. 

What if a myriad ages still 
Of wrong and pain, of waste and blood, 
Confuse our thought, triumphant Good 
At length, at last, our souls can fill 

With such assurance as the Voice 
Which from the blazing mountain pealed. 
And bade the kneeling hosts rejoice 
That God was in His laws revealed. 

Nay even might our thought conceive 
The final victory of 111, 
Not so, were it folly to believe 
That Right is higher, purer stilL 



148 Songs Unsung. 

Who knows the Eternal " Ought " knows well 
That whoso loves and seeks the Right, 
For him God shines with changeless light, 
Ay, to the lowest deeps of Hell. 

And whoso knoweth God indeed. 
The fixed foundations of his creed 
Know neither changing nor decay, 
Though all creation pass away. 



LOVE UNCHANGED. 

My love, my love, if I were old, 
My body bent, my blood grown cold, 
With thin white hairs upon my brow. 
Say wouldst thou think of me as now ? 
Wouldst thou cling to me still. 
As down life's sloping hill 
We came at last through the unresting years ? 
Art thou prepared for tears, 
For time's sure-coming losses. 
For life's despites and crosses, 
My love, my love ? 

Ah ! brief our little, little day ; 
Ah ! years that fleet so fast away ; 



150 Songs Unsu72g, 



Before our summer scarce begun, 
Look, spring and blossom-tide are done ! 
When all things hasten past, 
How should love only last ? 
How should our souls alone unchanged remain ?- 
Come pleasure or come pain, 
In days of joy and gladness, 
In years of grief and sadness. 
Love shall be love ! 



CLYT^MNESTRA IN PARIS. 

I SEEMED to pace the dreadful corridors 

Of a still foreign prison, blank and white, 

And in a bare and solitary cell 

To find a lonely woman, soft of voice 

And mild of eye, who never till life's end 

Should pass those frowning gates. Methought I asked her 

The story of her crime, and what hard fate 

Left her, so gentle seeming, fettered there. 

Hopeless, a murderess at whose very name 

Men shuddered still. And to my questioning 

jMethought that dreadful soul made answer thus : 

" Yes, I suppose I liked him, though I know not ; 



152 Songs Unsung, 

I hardly know what love may be ; how should I ? — 

I a young girl wedded without my will, 

As is our custom here, to a man old, 

Not perhaps in years, but dark experiences. 

What had we two in common, that worn man, 

And I, an untrained girl ? It was not strange 

If when that shallow boy, with his bold tongue. 

And his gay eyes, and curls, and budding beard. 

Flattered me, I was weak. I think all women 

Are weak sometimes, and overprone to love 

When the man is young, and straight, and 'twas a triumph 

To see the disappointed envious jades 

Wince as he passed them carelessly, nor heeded 

Their shallow wiles to trap him, — ay, a triumph ! 

And that was all ; I hardly know, indeed, 

If it was love that drove, or only pride 

To hold what others grudged me. Vain he was. 

And selfish, and a coward, as you shall hear 



ClyfcBinnestra in Paris. 153 

Handsome enough, I grant you, to betray 
A stronger soul than mine. Indeed, I think, 
He never cared for me nor I for him 
(For there were others after him) : I knew it. 
Then chiefest, when our comedy of life 
Was turning at the last to tragedy. 

" Now that I was unfaithful, a false wife, 

I value not men's sneers at a pin's point. 

We have a right to love and to be loved ; 

Not the mere careless tolerance of the spouse 

Who has none to give. True, if I were a nun, 

Vowed to a white and cloistered life, no doubt 

'Twere otherwise. They tell me there are women 

Who are so rapt by thoughts of the poor, of churches, 

Of public ends, of charity, of schools. 

Of Heaven knows what, they live their lives untouched 

By passion ; but for us, who are but women, 



154 Songs Unsung. 

Not bred on moonlight, perhaps of common clay, 
Untrained for aught but common bourgeois life, 
Life is no mystical pale procession winding 
Its way from the cradle to the grave, but rather 
A thing of hot swift flushes, fierce delights, 
Good eating, dances, wines, and all the rest, 
When the occasion comes. I never loved him, 
I tell you ; therefore, perhaps, I did no sin. 

" But when this fellow must presume to boast. 
Grow cold, have scruples for his soul and mine, 
And turn to other younger lives, and pass 
My door to-day with this one, then with that, 
And all the gossips of the quarter sneered, 
And knew I was deserted, do you think it 
A wonder that my eyes, opened at last. 
Saw all the folly and the wickedness 
(If sweet it were, where were the wickedness ?) 



ClytcEmnestra in Paris. 155 

Which bore such bitter fruit ? Think you it strange 

That I should turn for aid, ay, and revenge, 

To my wronged spouse — if wronged he be, indeed, 

Who doth consent as he did? When I told him, 

Amid my tears, he made but small pretence 

Of jealousy at all; only his pride 

Was perhaps a little wounded. And indeed 

It took such long confessions, such grave pain 

Of soul, such agony of remorse of mine 

To move him but a little, that I grew 

So weary of it all, it almost checked 

My penitence, and left me free to choose 

Another for my love ; but at the last. 

Long labour, feigned reports, the neighbours' sneers, 

These drove him at the last, good easy man. 

To such a depth of hatred, that my task 

Grew lighter, and my heart. 

He bade me write 



15^ Songs Unsung, 



Loving appeals, recalling our past days 

Together ; and I wrote them, using all 

The armoury of loving cozening words 

With which craft arms us women : but in vain, 

For whether some new love engrossed, or whether 

He wearied of me and my love, I know not, 

Only, in spite of all, no answer came. 

*' At length, since I could get no word from him, 

My husband bade me write — or was it I 

Who thought of the device ? Pray you believe me, 

I would speak nothing else than the whole truth. 

But these sad dreadful deeds confuse the brain. 

Well, perhaps 'twas I, who knew his weakness well ; 

I do not know, but somehow it came to pass 

I wrote a crafty letter, begging of him, 

By all our former kindness, former wrong, 

If for the last time, recognizing well 



ClytcEinnesti^a in Paris. 157 

That all was done between us evermore, 

We might, for one last evening, meet and part. 

And, knowing he was needy, and his greed, — 

' If only he would come,' I wrote to him, 

' I had some secret savings, and desired — 

For what need comes there closer than a friend's ? — 

To help him in his trouble.' 

Swift there came — 
The viper ! — hypocritical words of love : 
Yes, he would come, for the old love still lived, 
He knew it, ah, too well ; not all the glamour 
Of other eyes and lips could ever quench 
The fire of that mad passion. He would come, 
Loving as ever, longing for the day. 

'' Now when we had the answer, straight we three — 
My husband and myself, and his weak brother, 
Whose daughter to her first communion went 



158 Soiws Unsung. 



That very day, — and I, too, took the Host 

As earnest of changed Hfe, — we three, I say, 

At a Httle feast we made to celebrate 

The brothers reconciled (in families 

There come dissensions, as you know), devised 

His punishment. We hired, in a still suburb, 

A cottage standing backward from the street, 

Beyond an avenue of sycamores ; 

A lonely place, unnoticed. Day by day 

We went, we three together — for I feared 

Lest, if there were no third, the strength of youth 

Might bear my husband down — we went to make 

All needful preparations. First we spread 

Over all the floor a colour like to blood, 

For deep's the stain of blood, and w^hat shall cleanse it 1 

Also, my husband, from a neighbouring wood. 

Had brought a boar-trap, sharp with cruel knives 

And jagged teeth, to close with a snap and tear 



ClytcEmnestra in Paris. 159 

The wild beast caught within it. But I deemed 
The risk too great, the prey might sHp away ; 
Therefore, that he might meet his punishment, 
And to prevent the sound of cries and groans, 
My husband fashioned for his Hps a gag, 
x\nd on the mantel left it, and the means 
To strike a light. And being thus prepared, 
We three returned to Paris ; there long time 
A\^e sate eating and drinking of the best. 
As those do who have taken a resolve 
Whence no escape is, save to do and die. 

" Then the two men went back and left me there, 
With all my part to do. It was an hour 
Or more before the time when my poor dupe 
Had fixed to meet me. Wandering thus alone 
Through the old streets, seeing the common sights 
Of every day, the innocent child-faces 



1 60 So7igs Unstmg. 

Homing from school, so like my little ones, 

seemed to lose all count of time. At length, 
Because it was the Ascension Feast, there came 
A waft of music from the open doors 
Of a near church, and, entering in, I found 
The incensed air, all I remembered well — 
The lights, the soaring chants, the kneeling crowds, 
When I beheved and knelt. They seemed to soothe 
My half bewildered fancy, and I thought — 
What if a woman, who mayhap had sinned 
But lightly, wishing to repair her wrong. 
And bound thereby to some dark daring deed 
Of peril, should come here, and kneel awhile, 
And ask a blessing for the deed, of her 
Who is Heaven's Queen and knows our weaknesses 
Being herself a woman ! So I knelt 
In worship, and the soaring voices clear 
And the dim heights and worship-laden air 



ClytcEinnestra m Paris. i6i 

Filled me with comfort for my soul, and nerved 
My failing heart, and winged time's lagging flight, 
Till lo the hour was come when I should go 
To meet him for the last time. 

" When we left 
The city far behind, the sweet May night 
Was falling on the quiet village street ; 
There was a scent of hawthorn on the air 
As we passed on with feint of loving words, — 
Passed slow like lovers to the appointed place,. 
Passed to the place of punishment and doom 

" But when we reached the darkling avenue 
Of sycamores, which to the silent house 
Led through a palpable gloom, I felt him shudder 
With some blind vague presentiment of ill. 
And he would go no further ; but I clung 

M 



1 62 So7igs Unsung. 



Around him close, laughed all his fear to scorn, 

Whispered words in his ear, and step by step, 

My soul on reparation being set, 

Drew him reluctant to the fated door 

Where lay my spouse in ambush, and swift death. 

" I think I hear the dreadful noise of the key, 
Turning within the disused lock, the hall 
Breathing a false desertion, the loud sound 
Of both our footsteps echoing through the house. 
I could not choose but tremble. Yet I knew 
'Twas but a foolish weakness. Then I struck 
A match, and in the burst of sudden light 
I saw the ruddy cheek grown ashy pale. 
And as he doffed his hat, I marked the curls 
On his white forehead, and the boyish grace 
Which hung around him still, and almost felt 
Compassion. Then the darkness came again. 



ClytcBmnestra in Paris. i6 



'> 



And hid him, and I groped to find his hand, 
Clutched it with mine, and led him to the door. 

" But when within the darkhng room we were 

Where swift death waited him, not daUiance, 

Three times my trembHng fingers failed to wake 

The twinkling light which scarce could pierce the gloom 

Which hid my husband. Oh, to see his face 

When the dark aspect and the furious eyes 

Glared out on him ! ' I am lost ! ' he cried, ' I am lost ! ^ 

And then the sound of swift and desperate fight 

And a death struggle. Listening, as I stood 

Without, with that mean craven hound, our brother, 

I heard low cries of rage, and knew despair 

And youth had nerved the unarmed in such sort 

As made the conflict doubtful. Then I rushed 

Between them, threw my arms around him, clogged 

His force and held him fast, crying the while, 



1 64 Songs Unsung. 

' Wretch, would you kill my husband ! ' — held him fast, 
As coils a serpent round the escaping deer, \ 

Until my husband, hissing forth his hate, \ 

' Villain, I pierce thy heart as thou hast mine,' 
Stabbed through and through his heart. 

" But oh, but oh 
The lonely road, beneath the dreadful stars ! 
To the swift stream, we three — nay, nay, we four — 
One on the child's poor carriage covered o'er. 
And three who drew him onward, on the road, . >, 

That dead thing, having neither eye nor ear, 
Which late was full of life, and strife, and hate. 
On that dumb silence, came no wayfarer, j 

And once the covering which concealed our load 
Slipped down, and left the ghastly blood-stained thing 
Open to prying eyes, but none were there ; 
And then the darkling river, and the sound 



i 



ClytcBmnestra in ParHs. 165 



When, with lead coiled around it, the dead corpse 
Sank with a sullen plunge within the deep, 
And took with it the tokens of our crime. 

" Then with a something of relief, as those 

Who have passed through some great peril all unharmed, 

We went and burned the blood-stained signs of death, 

And left the dreadful place, and once more sped 

To Paris and to sleep, till the new day. 

Now risen to high noon, touched our sad dreams. 

" And that day, since we could not work as yet. 
We to the Picture Gallery went, and there 
We took our fill of nude voluptuous limbs, 
Mingled with scenes of horror bathed in blood. 
Such as our painters love. So week by week. 
Careless and unafraid, we spent our days. 
Till when that sad night faded ; swift there rose, 



1 66 So7tgs Unsung. 

Bursting the weights that kept it, the pale corpse, 
A damning witness from the deep, and brought 
The dreadful past again, and with it doom. 

*' You know how we were tried, and how things went, 

The cozening speeches, the brow-beating judge, 

The petty crafts which make the pleader's art, 

The dolts who sit in judgment, when the one 

Who knows all must be silent ; but you know not 

The intolerable burden of suspense, 

The hard and hateful gaze of hungry eyes 

Which gloat upon your suffering. When doom came 

It was well to know the worst, and hear no more 

The half-forgotten horrors. But I think 

The sense of common peril, common wrong. 

Knits us in indissoluble unity, 

Closer than years of converse. When my husband, 

Braving his doom, embraced me as he went : 




ClytcBinnestra in Paris, 167 



' Wife, so thou live I care not,' all my heart 
Went out to him for a moment, and I cried, 
' Let me die too, my guilt is more than his.' 

" Some quibble marred the sentence, and once more 
The miserable tale was told afresh : 
Once more I stood before those hungry eyes, 
And when 'twas done we went forth slaves for life, 
Both with an equal doom, and ever since 
We suffer the same pains in solitude. 
Slaves fettered fast, whom only death sets free. 

" That is my tale told truly. Now you know, 
Sir, of what fashion I am made : a woman 
Gentle, you see, and mild eyed. If I sinned 
Surely there was temptation, and I sought 
Such reparation as I could. There are here 
Tigresses, and not women, black of brow 



1 68 Songs Unsung. 

And strong of arm, who have struck down or stabbed 

Husband, or child, or lover, not as I, 

But driven by rage and jealousy, and drink 1 

These creatures of the devil, as I pass 

I see them shrink and shudder. The young priest 

Of the prison, a well-favoured lad he is, 

When I confessed to him bore on his brow 

Cold drops of agony ; the Sister grew 

So pale at what I told her, that I thought 

She was like to swoon away, until I soothed her. 

Poor wretch, she has much to learn ; and here I am. 

And shall be till my hair turns grey, my eyes 

Grow dim, and I have clean forgotten all 

That brought me here, and all my former life 

Fades like a once-heard tale. In the long nights, 

As I lie alone in my cell like any nun, 

I wake sometimes with a start, and seem to hear 

That rusty lock turn, and those echoing feet 



Clytcsmnestra in Paris. 169 

Down that dark passage, and I seem to see 
The dreadful stare of those despairing eyes, 
And then there sounds, a plunge in the deep, and I 

Lie shivering till the dawn. I have no comfort 

Except the holy Mass ; for see you, sir, 

I was devout until they scoffed at me. 

And now I know there is a hell indeed. 

Since this place is on earth. I do not think 

I have much cause to fear death, should it come ; 

For whoso strives for Duty, all the Saints 

And the Madonna needs must love, and I, 

I have done what penitence could do ; and here 

What have I of reward ? — my children taken 

As clean from me as if they were dead indeed, 

Trained to forget their mother. Sir, I see, 

Beyond these shallow phantasms of life ; 

And this I hold, that one whose conscience shows 

As clear as mine must needs be justified. 



lyo Songs Unsung, 

I love the holy Mass, and take the Host 

As often as I may, being of good heart. 

For what was it she did in Holy Writ, 

The Kenite's wife of old ? I do not read 

That women shrunk from her because she drave 

The nail through her guest's brain ; nay, rather, praise 

Was hers : yet was she not betrayed as I, 

Nor yet repentant of her wrong and seeking 

To do what good was left. But look you, sir, 

If I was once repentant, that is past : 

I hate those black-browed women, who turn from me, 

That smooth priest and that poor fool with her cross, 

And that strange pink-and- whiteness of the nun. 

And sometimes when they come I let them hear 

Such things as make the pious hypocrites turn 

And cross themselves. And for this tigress crew, 

If I might only steal to their cells at night 

With a knife, I would teach them, what it is to stab ; 



It 



Clytmmnestra in Paris. 171 



Or even without one, that these Httle hands 
Can strangle with the best. 

Ah, you draw back, 
You too are shocked forsooth. Listen, you wretch, 
Who are walking free while I am prisoned here : 
How many thoughts of murder have you nursed 
Within your miserable heart ! how many 
Low, foul desires which would degrade the brute ! 
Do you think I do not know you men ? What was it 
That kept your hands unstained, but accident ? — 
Accident, did I say 1 or was it rather 
Cowardice, that you feared the stripes of the law. 
And did not dare to do your will or die ? — 
Accident ! then, I pray you, where the merit 
To have abstained ? Or if you claim, indeed, 
Such precious self-restraint as keeps your feet 
From straying, where the credit ? since it came 
A gift as much unearned as other's ill, 



172 Songs Unsung. 

Which lurked for them a little tiny speck 
Hidden in the convolutions of the brain, 
To grow with their growth, and wax with their years, and 

leave 
The wretch at last in Hell. Do you deem it just, 
The Potter with our clay upon His wheel 
Should shape it in such form ? I love not God, 
Being such ; I hate Him rather : I, His creature, 
I do impugn His justice or His power, 
I will not feign obedience— I, a woman. 
Of a soft nature, who would love my love, 
And my child, and nothing more ; who am, instead, 
A murderess, as they tell me, pining here 
In hell before my time." 

Even as she spake 
I seemed to be again as when I saw 
The murderess of old time ; and once again 



ClytcBmnestra in Paris. 17 

Within this modern prison, blank and white, 
'here came the viewless trouble in the air 
Which took her, and the sweep of wings unseen, 
And terrible sounds which swooped on her and hushed 
Her voice and seemed to occupy her soul 
With horror and despair ; and as I passed 
The crucifix within the corridor, 
" How long?" I cried, '^ How long? " 



'•> 



AT THE END. 

When the five gateways of the soul 

Are closing one by one, 

When our being's currents slowly roll 

And life nigh done, 

What shall our chiefest comfort be 

Amid this misery ? 

Not to have stores heaped up on high 

Of gold and precious things, 

Not to have flown from sky to sky 

On Fame's wide wings, — 

All these things for a space do last, 

And then are overpast. 




At the E7id. 175 



Nor to have worked with patient brain 

In senate or in mart, 

To have gained the meed which those attain 

Who have played their part, — 

Effort is fair, success is sweet. 

But leave life incomplete. 

Nor to have said, as the fool said, 

" Be merry, soul, rejoice ; 

" Thou hast laid up store for many days." 

Oh, foolish voice ! 

Already at thy gate the feet 

Of the corpse-bearers meet. 

Nor to have heaped up precious store 
Of all the gains of time. 
Of long-dead sages' treasured lore, 
Or deathless rhyme, — 



1 7^ Songs Unsung, 

Learning's a sweet and comely maid, 
But Death makes her afraid. 



Nor to have drained the cup of youth, 
To the sweet maddening lees ; 
Nor, rapt by dreams of Hidden Truth, 
To have spurned all these ; — 
Pleasure, Denial, touch not him 
Whose body and mind are dim. 



Not one of all these things shall I 

For comfort, use, or strength, 

When the sure hour, when I shall die, 

Takes me at length ; 

One thought alone shall bring redress 

For that great heaviness : — 



At the End. 177 



That I have held each struggHng soul 

As of one kin and blood, 

That one sure link doth all control 

To one close brotherhood ; 

For who the race of men doth love, 

Loves also Him above 



N 



THREE BRETON POEMS. 



THE ORPHAN GIRL OF LANNION. 

In seventeen hundred and eighty-three, 
To Lannion came dole and misery. 

Mignon an orphan, as good as fair, 
Served in the little hostelry there. 

One darkling night, when the hour was late, 
Two travellers rang at the outer gate. 

" Quick, hostess ! supper, red wine, and food ; 
We have money to pay, so that all be good." 



The Orphan Girl of Lannion. 1 79 

When they had drunken enough, and more, 
" Here is white money to pay the score. 

" And now shall your little serving-maid come, 
With her lantern lighted, to guide us home." 

" Gentles, in all our wide Brittany 

There is no man would harm her, so let it be." _ 

Forth went the maid, full of innocent pride, 
Fearless and free, with her light by her side. 



When they were far on their lonely way. 
They began to whisper, and mutter, and say, 

" Little maid, your face is as fair and bright 
As the foam on the wave in the morning light." 



1 80 Songs Uitsung. 

" Gentles, I pray you, flatter me not : 

It is as God made it — no other, God wot ; 

" And were it fairer, I tell you true — 

Ay, a hundred times fairer — 'twere nought to you." 



" To judge, little maid, by your sober speech, 

You know all the good priests at the school can teach 

" To judge from your accents, discreet and mild, 
You were bred in the convent cloister, my child." 

" No teacher had I, neither priest nor nun ; 
There was no one to teach me on earth, not one. 

*' But while by my father's poor hearth I wrought, 
God filled me with many a holy thought." 



The Orphan Girl of Lannion. i8i 

"Set down your lantern and put out the light 

Here is gold : none can help you, 'tis dead of night" 

" Good sirs ! for my brother the young priest's sake ; 
If he heard such sayings his heart would break." 



** Oh, plunge me down fathoms deep in the sea, 
Of your mercy, rather than this thing be ! 

" Rather than this — 'twere a lighter doom — 
Oh bury me quick in a living tomb ! " 

% 'H: % * * 

The motherly hostess, sore afraid, 
Waited in vain for her little maid. 

She watched by the chill hearth's flickering light 

Till the bell tolled twice through the black dead night. 



1 82 Songs Unsung. 



Then cried, " Up, serving-men, sleep no more ! 
Help ! — little maid Mignon lies drowned in gore/' 

***** 

By the cross she lay dead, in the dead cold night, 
But beside her her lantern was still alight ! 



II. 

THE FOSTER BROTHER. 



P 



Of all the noble damsels, in all our Brittany, 
Gwennola was the sweetest far, a maiden fair to see. 

Scarce eighteen summers shed their gold upon her 

shapely head, 
Yet all who loved the fair girl best were numbered with 

the dead — 



Her father and her mother, and eke her sisters dear. 
Ah ! Mary, pity 'twas to see her shed the bitter tear 



1 84 Songs Ujisung. 



At her casement in the castle, where a step-dame now 

bare sway, 
Her dim eyes fixed upon the sea, which gUmmered far 

away. 



For three long years she watched in vain, in dole and 

misery, 
To see her foster brother's sail spring up from over sea ; 

For three long years she watched in vain, hoping each 

day would send 
The only heart which beat to hers, her lover and her 

friend. 

" Go, get you gone and tend the kine," the cruel step- 
dame said ; 

" Leave brooding over long-past years : go, earn your 
daily bread." 



r 



The Foster B^'otJiei^ 185 



She woke her, ere the darkling dawns, while yet 'twas 

dead of night, 
To sweep the floors and cleanse the house, and set the 

fires alight ; 

To fetch the water from the brook, again and yet again, 
With heavy toil and panting breath, and young form bent 
in twain. 

****** 

One darkling winter morning, before the dawning light, 
With ringing hoofs, across the brook there rode a noble 
knight V 

" Good morrow, gracious maiden, and art thou free to 

wed ? " 
And she, so young she was and meek, " I know not, sir," 

she said. 



1 86 Songs Unsung, 

" I prithee tell me, maiden, if thou art fancy-free ? " 
"To none, sir, have I plighted yet my maiden troth," 
said she. 

" Then take, fair maid, this ring of gold, and to your 

step-dame say. 
That to-day your troth is plighted to a knight from far 

away ; 

" That at Nantes a battle fierce was fought, wherein his 

squire was slain. 
And he himself lies stricken sore upon his bed of pain ; 

"But when three weeks are overpast, whatever fate betide, 
He will come himself full gaily, and claim thee for his 
bride." 

All breathless ran she homeward, when, lo, a wondrous 

thing ! 
For on her slender finger blazed her foster brother's ring. 




The Foster Brother. 187 



II. 

The weeks crept onward slowly, crept slowly — one, two, 

three ; 
But never came the young knight, no never more came he. 

" Come, it is time that you were wed, for I have sought 

for you 
A bridegroom fitted to your rank, an honest man and 

true." 

" Nay, nay, I prithee, step-dame, there is none that I can 

wed, 
Only my foster brother dear I love, alive or dead. 

" With this ring his troth he plighted, and whatever fate 

betide. 
He will come himself full gaily, and claim me for his 

bride." 



1 88 Songs U7isting. 



" Peace, with thy golden wedding-ring ! peace, fool, or I 

I 

will teach , il 

- ( 

With blows thy senseless chattering tongue to hold dis- 
creeter speech ; 



"To-morrow thou shalt be the bride, whether thou wilt 
or not, I 

Of Giles the neat-herd, honest man : ay, this shall be thy 
lot." 

" Of Giles the neat-herd, saidst thou ? oh, I shall die of| 

pain ! 
Oh mother, dear dead mother, that thou wert in life] 

again ! " 

*'Go, cry and wail without the house; go, feed on misery; 
Go, take thy fill of moans and tears, for wedded thou 
shalt be." 



The Foster Brother. 189 



III. 

Just then the ancient sexton, with the bell that tolls the 

dead, 
Went up and down the country side, and these the words 

he said : — 

" Pray for the soul of one who was a brave and loyal 

knight, 
Who bare at Nantes a grievous hurt, what time they 

fought the fight : 

" To-morrow eve, at set of sun, amid the gathering gloom, 
From the white church they bear him forth, to rest within 
the tomb." 



190 Songs Unsung. 



IV. 

" Thou art early from the wedding feast ! " ''Good truth, 

I could not stay ; 
I dared not see the piteous sight, and therefore turned 

away; 

" I could not bear the pity and the horror in her eyne, 
As she stood so fair, in blank despair, within the sacred 
shrine. 

*' Around the hapless maiden, all were weeping bitterly, 
And the good old rector at the church, a heavy heart 
had he ; 

"Not a dry eye was around her, save the step-dame stem 

alone. 
Who looked on with an evil smile, as from a heart of 

stone ; 



The Foster Brother. 191 

" And when the ringers rang a peal, as now they came 

again, 
And the women whispered comfort, yet her heart seemed 

rent in twain. 

*' High in the place of honour at the marriage feast she 

sate, 
Yet no drop of water drank she, and no crumb of bread 

she ate ; 

" And when at last, the feast being done, they would light 

the bride to bed, 
The ring from off her hand she flung, the wreath from off 

her head, 

"And with wild eyes that spoke despair, and locks that 

streamed behind, 
Into the darkling night she fled, as swiftly as the wind." 



\ 

192 Songs Unsu7tg. \ 

I 

I 
V. \ 

The lights within the castle were out, and all asleep ; 
Only, with fever in her brain, the maid would watch and 
weep. 

The chamber door swung open. " Who goes there ? " 

" Do not fear, 
Gwen ; 'tis I, your foster brother." " Oh ! at last, my 

love, my dear ! " 

He raised her to the saddle, and his strong arm clasped 

her round. 
As, through the night, his charger white flew on without a 

I 

sound. 

" How fast we go, my brother ! " " 'Tis a hundred 

leagues and more." 
" How happy am I, happier than in all my life before ! 



The Foster Brother. 193 



"And have we far to go, brother ? I would that we were 

come." 
" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; 'tis a long way to 

our home." 



The white owl shrieked around them, the wild things 

shrank in fear 
As through the night a cloud of light that ghostly steed 

drew near. 

" How swift your charger is, brother ! and your armour, 

oh, how bright ! 
Ah, no more you are a boy, brother, but in troth a noble 

knight ! 



u 



How beautiful you are, brother ! but I would that we 



were come." 



" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; we are not far 
from home." 



194 Songs Unsung. 

" Your breath is icy-cold, brother, your locks are dank 

and wet ; 
Your heart, your hands are icy-cold ; oh ! is it further 

yet ? " 

" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; for we are nearly 

there. 
Hist ! hear you not our marriage bells ring through the 

midnight air ? " 

Even with the word, that ghostly steed neighed suddenly 

and shrill, 
Then trembled once through every limb, and like a stone 

stood still. 

******** 

And lo, within a land they were, a land of mirth and 

pleasure, 
Where youths and maidens hand in hand danced to a 

joyous measure ; 



The Foster Brother. 195 



A verdant orchard closed them round with golden fruit 

bedight, 
And above them, from the heaven-kissed hills, came shafts 

of golden light ; 



Hard by, a cool spring bubbled clear, a fountain without 

stain, 
Whereof the dead lips tasting, grew warm with life again. 

There was Gwennola's mother mild, and eke her sisters 

dear : 
Oh, land of joy and bUss and love ! — oh, land without 

a tear ! 

VI. 

But when the next sun on the earth, brake from the 

gathered gloom, 
From the white church, the young maids bore, the 

virgin to her tomb. 



III. 

AZENOR. 

" Seamen, seamen, tell me true, 
Is there any of your crew 
Who in Armor town has seen 
Azenor the kneeling queen ? " 

" We have seen her oft indeed, 
Kneeling in the self-same place ; 
Brave her heart, though pale her face, 
White her soul, though dark her weed." 



Of a long-past summer's day 
Envoys came from Tar away, 



Azenor. 197 



Mailed in silver, clothed with gold, 
On their snorting chargers bold. 



When the warder spied them near, 

To the King he went, and cried, 

" Twelve bold knights come pricking here 

Shall I open to them wide ? " 



" Let the great gates opened be ; 
See the knights are welcomed all ; 
Spread the board and deck the hall 
We will feast them royally." 



" By our Prince's high command, 
Who one day shall be our King, 
We come to ask a precious thing — 
Azenor your daughter's hand." 



1 9^ Songs Unsung. 



" Gladly will we grant your prayer : 
Brave the youth, as we have heard. 
Tall is she, milkwhite and fair, 
Gentle as a singing bird." 

Fourteen days high feast they made. 
Fourteen days of dance and song ; 
Till the dawn the harpers played ; 
Mirth and joyance all day long. 

" Now, my fair spouse, it is meet 
That we turn us toward our home." 
" As you will, my love, my sweet ; 
Where you are, there I would come." 



Azenor, 199 



II. 

When his step-dame saw the bride, 
Well-nigh choked with spleen was she : 
" This pale-faced girl, this lump of pride- 
And shall she be preferred to me ? 

" New things please men best, 'tis true, 
And the old are cast aside. 
Natheless, what is old and tried 
Serves far better than the new." 



Scarce eight months had passed away 
When she to the Prince would come. 
And with subtlety would say, 
*' Would you lose both wife and home ? 



200 Soitgs Unstmg. 

" Have a care, lest what I tell 
Should befall you ; so 'twere best 
Have a care and guard you well, 
'Ware the cuckoo in your nest." 

" Madam, if the truth you tell, 
Meet reward her crime shall earn, 
First the round tower's straitest cell, 
Then in nine days she shall burn." 



III. 



When the old King was aware. 
Bitter tears the greybeard shed. 
Tore in grief his white, white hair, 
Crying, " Would God that I were dead ! " 




Azenor. 201 

And to all the seamen said, 
" Good seamen, pray you tell me true. 
Is there, then, any one of you 
Can tell me if my child be dead ? " 

" My liege, as yet alive is she, 
Though burned to-morrow shall she be : 
But from her prison tower, O King ! 
Morning and eve we hear her sing. 

" Morning and eve, from her fair throat 
Issues the same sweet plaintive note, 
' They are deceived ; I kiss Thy rod : 
Have pity on them, O my God ! ' " 



202 Songs Unsung, 



IV. 

Even as a lamb who gives its life 
All meekly to the cruel knife, 
AVhite-robed she went, her soft feet bare, 
Self-shrouded in her golden hair. 

And as she to her dreadful fate 
Fared on, poor innocent, meek and mild, 
" Grave crime it were," cried small and great, 
" To slay the mother and the child." 

All wept sore, both small and great ; 
Only the step-dame smiling sate : 
" Sure 'twere no evil deed, but good, 
To kill the viper with her brood." 



Aze7i07\ 203 

" Quick, good firemen, fan the fire 
Till it leap forth fierce and red ; 
Fan it fierce as my desire : 
She shall burn till she is dead." 

Vain their efforts, all in vain, 
Though they fanned and fanned again ; 
The more they blew, the embers gray 
Faded and sank and died away. 

When the judge the portent saw, 
Dazed and sick with fear was he : 
" She is a witch, she flouts the law ; 
Come, let us drown her in the sea." 



204 Songs Unsung. 



What saw you on the sea ? A boat 
Neither by sail nor oarsman sped ; 
And at the helm, to watch it float, 
An angel white with wings outspread ; 

A little boat, far out to sea. 
And with her child a fair ladye. 
Whom at her breast she sheltered well, 
Like a white dove upon a shell. 

She kissed, and clasped, and kissed again 
His little back, his little feet, 
Crooning a soft and tender strain, 
" Da-da, my dear ; da-da, my sweet. 



Aze7ior. 205 

" Ah, could your father see you, sweet, 
A proud man should he be to-day ; 
But we on earth may never meet, 
But he is lost and far away." 



VI. 

In Armor town is such affright 
As never castle knew before. 
For at the midmost hour of night 
The wicked step-dame is no more. 

" I see hell open at my side : 
Oh, save me, in God's name, my son ! 
Your spouse was chaste ; 'twas I who lied ; 
Oh, save me, for I am undone I " 



2o6 Songs Unsttng. 

Scarce had she checked her lying tongue, 
When from her lips a snake did glide, 
With threatening jaws, which hissed and stung, 
And pierced her marrow till she died. 

Eftsoons, to foreign realms the knight 
Went forth, by land and over sea ; 
Seeking in vain his lost delight. 
O'er all the round, round world went he. 

He sought her East, he sought her West, 
Next to the hot South sped he forth. 
Then, after many a fruitless quest. 
He sought her in the gusty North. 

There by some nameless island vast. 
His anchor o'er the side he cast ; 
When by a brooklet's fairy spray, 
He spies a little lad at play. 



Aze7tor. 207 

Fair are his locks, and blue his eyes, 
As his lost love's or as the sea ; 
The good knight looking on them, sighs, 
" Fair child, who may thy father be ? " 

" Sir, I have none save Him in heaven : 
Long years ago he went away, 
Ere I was born, and I am seven ; 
My mother mourns him night and day." 

" Who is thy mother, child, and where ? " 
'' She cleanses linen white and fair. 
In yon clear stream." "Come, child, and we 
Together will thy mother see." 

He took the youngling by the hand, 
And, as they passed the yellow strand, 
The child's swift blood in pulse and arm 
Leapt to his father's and grew warm. 



2o8 So7tgs Unstmg. 



" Rise up and look, oh mother dear ; 
It is my father who is here : 
My father who was lost is come — 
Oh, bless God for it ! — to his home." 

They knelt and blessed His holy name, 
Who is so good, and just, and mild, 
Who joins the sire and wife and child : 
And so to Brittany they came. 

And may the blessed Trinity, 
Protect all toilers on the sea ! 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. 



SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. 

Complete in one volume. Crown Zvo. Uniform with "The Epic of Hades. 



-•o*- 



TiiESE poems were originally published in three volumes, issued 
in the years 1872, 1874, and 1875. The following are a few 
selections from the Press notices which appeared as they were 
issued. 

(first series.) 

" No one after reading the first two poems — almost perfect in rhythm and 
all the graceful reserve of true lyrical strength — could doubt for an instant 
that this book is the result of lengthened thought and assiduous training in 
poetic forms. These poems will assuredly take high rank among the class 
to which they belong." — British Quarterly Review, April, 1872. 

" If this volume is the mere prelude of a mind growing in power, we 

have in it the promise of a fine poet In 'The Wandering Soul,' the 

verse describing Socrates has that highest note of critical poetry, that in 
it epigram becomes vivid with life, and life reveals its inherent paradox. It 
would be difficult to describe the famous irony of Socrates in more poetical 
and more accurate words than by saying that he doubted men's doubts 
away." — Spectator, February 17th, 1872. 

"Throughout there is the true lyrical note, the 'cry' that seems to veil 
itself in the harmony of the language it chooses, and so makes itself only the 
more imperatively felt. Seldom, indeed, does it fall to the lot of the critic 

to come on such a prize as this No extracts could do justice to the 

exquisite tones, the felicitous phrasing and delicately wrought harmonies 
of some of these poems." — Nonconforjiiist, March 27th, 1872. 

" In all this poetry there is a purity and delicacy of feeling which comes 
over one like morning air." — Graphic, March i6th, 1872. 

P 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



(second series.) 

" In earnestness, sweetness, and the gift of depicting nature, the writer 
may be pronounced a worthy disciple of his compatriot, Henry Vaughan, the 
Siiurist. Several of the shorter poems are instinct with a noble purpose and 
a high ideal of life. One perfect picture, marginally annotated, so to speak, 
in the speculations which it calls forth, is 'The Organ-Boy.' P>ut the most 
noteworthy poem is the ' Ode on a Fair Spring Morning,' which has some- 
what of the charm and truth to nature of ' L'Allegro' and 'II Penseroso.' It is 
the nearest approach to a master-piece in the volume." — Saturday Review, 
May 30th, 1874. 

" If in any respect this second series is superior to the first, it is in a 
certain mellowness and warmth of tone. The poem entitled ' To an Unknown 
Poet' is a wonderful combination of insight, melody, picture, and suggestion. 
'The Organ-Boy' brings out a strong contrast in a most powerful and felicitous 
way." — British Quarterly Review, July 1st, 1874. 

" This volume is a real advance on its predecessor of the same name, and 
contains at least one poem of great originality, as well as many of much 
tenderness, sweetness, and beauty. ' The Organ-Boy ' we have read again 
and again, with fresh pleasure on every reading. It is as exquisite a little 
poem as we have read for many a day." — Spectator, June 13th, 1874. 

"The reception of the New Writer's first series shows that, in his degree, 
he is one of the poetical forces of the time. Of the school of poetry of which 
Horace is the highest master, he is a not undistinguished pupil." — Academy ^ 
August nth, 1874. 

" This series is superior to the first. No person of the least sensitiveness 
could read a few pages of this volume, and deny that the writer possesses the 
' vision of the poet.' The glance, the touch, the hint suffice, and you have 
not only a picture, but a series of pictures. Of the poems we can only say 
that they are quick with wisdom and high thought, touched with phantasy, 
and flowing easily into imaginative forms." — Nonconforfnist, June 24th, 
1874. 

"A warm welcome is due to this pleasant and able volume of poems, 
which is marked by distinctness of aim, artistic clearness of execution, and 
that particular imaginative lustre which belongs to the truly poetic mind." 
— Guardian, September 20th, 1874. 

"The verses are full of melodious charm, and sing themselves almost 
without music." — Blackwood's, August ist, 1874. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



(third series.) 

" Not unworthy of its predecessors. It presents the same command of 
metre and diction, the same contrasts of mood, the same grace and sweetness. 
It cannot be denied that he has won a definite position among contempo- 
rary poets." — Times, October i6th, 1875. 

" * Evensong ' shows power, thought, and courage to grapple with the pro- 
foundest problems. In the ' Ode to Free Rome ' we find worthy treatment 
of the subject and passionate expression of generous sympathy." — Saturday 
Review, July 31st, 1875. 

" More perfect in execution than either of its predecessors The pure 

lyrics are sweeter and richer. In the ' Birth of Verse ' every stanza is a little 
poem in itself, and yet a part of a perfect whole." — Spectator, May 22nd, 
1875- 

" ' Evensong' is a poem in which the source of inspiration is the sub- 
limity to which thought is led by the contemplation of metaphysical problems. 
It would be impossible to give any notion of the poem by quotations." — 
AthencBnm, May 8th, 1875. 

"It would be well, indeed, if our more successful versifiers as a rule ful- 
filled their early promise as calmly, equably, and melodiously as the author. 
His range of moral sympathy is large, and his intellectual view is wide enough 
to embrace a great variety of subjects." — Guardian, September ist, 1875. 

" If each book that he publishes is to mark as steady improvement as 
have his second and third, the world may surely look for something from the 
writer which shall immortalize him and remain as a treasure to literature." — 
GrapJiic, June ist, 1875. 

" The author's healthiness and uprightness of feeling refresh one like a 
cold air after a hot and sultry day. 'The Home Altar' should in future 

adorn every collection of English religious verse The exquisite cadence 

of these verses The farewell that he threatens cannot be permitted." 

— Examiner, May 8th, 1875. 

"The high hopes we had been led to entertain are here realized At 

one page he is celebrating the doubts bred of science, and on the next the 
poor little ' Arabs,' enlisted in the sale of the cheap newspapers, have due 
celebration, and that more successfully than was even the case with that 
wonderful poem in the last volume, ' The Organ-Boy.' We despair of doing 
justice to this choice volume by ^yiXxd^cX." —Nonconformist, May 19th, 1875. 



THE EPIC OF HADES 

BOOK II* 



-»o«- 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

"Fresh, picturesque, and by no means deficient in intensity ; but 
the most conspicuous merits of the author are the judgment and 
moderation with which his poem is designed, his self-possession 
within his prescribed limits, and the unfailing elegance of his 
composition, which shrinks from obscurity, exuberance, and rash 
or painful effort as religiously as many recent poets seem to 

cultivate such interesting blemishes Perhaps the fine 

bursts of music in Marsyas, and the varied emotions portrayed in 
Andromeda, are less characteristic of the author than the prompt, 
yet graceful, manner in which he passes from one figure to another. 
.... Fourteen of these pieces written in blank verse which 
bears comparison with the very best models make up a thoroughly 

enjoyable little volume Fully suited to maintain and 

crown the reputation the author has acquired by those which 
have preceded it." — Pall Mall Gazette, March loth, 1876. 

" It is natural that the favourable reception given to his ' Songs 
of Two Worlds ' should have led the author to continue his 
poetical exercises, and it is, no doubt, a true instinct which has led 
him to tread the classic paths of song. In his choice of subject 
he has not shrunk from venturing on ground occupied by at least 
two Victorian poets. In neither case need he shrink from com- 
parison. His Marsyas is full of fine fancy and vivid description. 
His Andromeda has to us one recommendation denied to 
Kingsley's — a more congenial metre ; another is its unstrained 
and natural narrative." — Satwday Review, May 20th, 1876. 

■ " — ■ ^ 

* Book II. was issued as a separate volume prior to the publication of 
]>ooks I. and III. and of the complete work. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 5 

"In his enterprise of connecting the Greek myth with the 
high and wider meaning which Christian sentiment naturally 
finds for it, his success has been great. The passage in which 
Apollo's victory over Marsyas and its effect are described is full 
of exquisite beauty. It is almost as fine as verse on such a 

subject could be The little volume is delightful reading. 

From the first line to the last, the high and delicate aroma of 
purity breathes through the various spiritual fables." — Spectator^ 
May 27th, 1876. 

"The blank verse is stately, yet sweet, free, graceful, and never 
undignified. We could have well wished that space had per- 
mitted us to make extracts. We confidently believe that our 
readers will agree with us in regarding this as one of the finest 
and most suggestive poems recently published. We trust to 
have, ere long, more poetic work from his hand." — British 
Quarterly Reviezv, April 1st, 1 8 76. 

"The writer has shown himself more critical than his friends, 
and the result is a gradual, steady progress in power, which we 

frankly acknowledge This long passage studded with 

graces." — Academy, April 29th, 1876. 

" No lover of poetry will question his right to rank as a true 
poet. His mark is made upon the age, and his future must be a 
matter of enduring interest." — Sunday Times, March 26th, 1876. 

" From first to last, the work is that of a true poet, and such 
as a true poet alone could accomplish." — Standard, March 27th, 
1876. 

"Told as only a poet could tell such stories, with clearness 
of outline and chastity of colour ; with rich, vivid imagination, 
always moulded and guided by an instinct of true artistic moder- 
ation and restraint ; with a pathos and a tenderness which bring 
home to us the loves and the sorrows even of those dim shades, 
and enable us to feel across the ages the quick throb of human 
brotherhood. The world has to thank him for four volumes of 
true and exquisite poetry." — Liverpool Albion, March i8th, 187b. 

"English blank verse of an exquisite sort, than which the 
Laureate himself pens none more perfect." — Illustrated News^ 
May 27th, 1876. 



THE EPIC OF HADES. 

BOOKS I. and III. and the COMPLETE WORK. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

"The author's present volumes continue the promise of his 
earlier work, and advance it somewhat further towards fulfil- 
ment. In one sense the idea of his Epic is not only ambitious, 
but audacious, for it necessarily awakens reminiscences of Dante. 
Not unfrequently he is charmingly pathetic, as in his Helen and 
Psyche. There is considerable force and no small imagination 
in the description of some of the tortures in the ' Tartarus. ' 
There is genuine poetical feeling in the 'Olympus.' .... We 
might invite attention to many other passages. But it is more 
easy to give honest general praise than to single out particular 
extracts." — Times, February 9th, 1877. 

"The various symbolisms of the ancient myths are worked 
out with quite as much poetical feeling as in the former part. 
.... The whole of this last portion of the poem is exceedingly 

beautiful Nor will any, except critics of limited view, 

fail to recognize in the Epic a distinct addition to their store of 
those companions of whom we never grow tired." — Atht'titetwi, 
March 3rd, 1877. 

" Clytemnestra is a striking dramatic study The whole 

passage is as tragic as it is graphic Thus the author has 

achieved the task he set himself of showing that the myths of 
classic antiquity are capable of interpretation by a modern singer. 
A simple, lucid style, a spontaneous power of song, and a bright, 
fearless fancy enable him to seize and retain the sympathies 
of his audience. We believe that the Epic will approve itself 
to students as one of the most considerable and original feats 
of recent Engli.sh poetry." — Saturday Keview, March 31st, 1877. 




OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 7 

"We notice the same thoughtfulness and penetrating sympathy 
which have enabled the author, without doing violence to the 
sweet rounded grace of the old myths, to impart an undercurrent 
of present-day meaning and reference which should find for 
them a wider audience than could be expected for anything in 
the character of a severely Pagan revival merely. Thought, fancy, 
music, and penetrating sympathy we have here, and that radiant, 
unnamable suggestive delicacy which enhances the attraction 
with each new reading." — British Quarterly Review, April, 1877. 

"The author most certainly possesses very great powers ; but 
he is writing far too fast. We gladly repeat, however, that the 
present work is by far his greatest achievement ; that the whole 
tone of it is noble, and that portions, more especially the con- 
cluding lines, are excessively beautiful." — Westminster Review, 
April, 1877. 

"The work is one of which any singer might justly be proud. 
In fact, the Epic is in every way a remarkable poem, which to 
be appreciated must not only be read, but studied. It is that 
rarest of things, a book one would care to buy and keep." — 
Graphic, March loth, 1877. 

"This is in our opinion, in a high and serious sense, a remark- 
able poem — remarkable alike for thought, for music, and for fine 
suggestive quality. We look forward still to being made yet 
more the writer's debtors, " — Nonconformist, February 21st, 1877. 

"All his poems have proved him appreciative, thoughtful, and 
scholarly. 'The Epic of Hades' should rank highest of his 
work." — Examiner, February 24th, 1 87 7. 

"We do not hesitate to advance it as our opinion that *The 
Epic of Hades' will enjoy the privilege of being classed amongst 
the poems in the English language which will live." — Civil 
Sej'vice Gazette, March 17th, 1877. 

"Exquisite beauty of melodious verse A remarkable 

poem, both in conception and execution. We sincerely wish 
for the author a complete literary success." — Literary World, 
March 30th, 1877. 

"The author never sinks low, but he often rises high, and 
thus you have poetry which pleases you as you read, which 



3 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

shocks no sensibility, never wearies you, and often raises you into 
a serener atmosphere, in which the earthiness of the earth is lost 
sight of, and the pure and almost the divine are found. It will 
be surprising if the reader does not come to the conclusion that 
the author is a poet of very high order." — Scoisman, April 27th, 
1877. 

" Will live as a poem of permanent power and charm. It will 

receive high appreciation from all who can enter into its meaning, 
for its graphic and liquid pictures of external beauty, the depth 
and truth of its purgatorial idea?, and the ardour, tenderness, 
and exaltation of its spiritual life," — Spectator^ May 5th, 1877. 

*' I have lately been reading a poem which has interested me 
very much, a poem called ' The Epic of Hades.' Many of you 
may never have heard of it ; most of you may never have seen 
it. It is, as I view it, another gem added to the wealth of the 
poetry of our language." — Mr. Bright s speech on Cobden, at 
Bradford, July 25th, 1877. 

"I have derived from it a deep pleasure and refreshment such 
as I never thought modern poetry could give. " — The Bishop of 
Gloucester and Bristol. 

"This poem is not in the merely technical sense an epic, any 
more than the divine poem of Dante is a comedy. That was a 
comedy, as passing to a happy close ; from Hell, through Pur- 
gatory, into Paradise. This is an epic, as it is concerned with 
one great action ; for the soul of man is shown throughout it 
labouring towards what Mr. Tennyson has called the 

One far-off divine event 
To which the whole Creation moves. 

In the blank verse of the 'Epic of Hades,' apt words are so 
simply arranged with unbroken melody, that if the woi^k were 
printed as prose, it would remain a song, and every word wouki 
still be where the sense required it ; not one is set in a wrong 
place through stress of need for a mechanical help to the music. 
The poem has its sound mind housed in a sound body.'' — P^-o- 
fesscr Morley in 7 he XIX th Century, February, 1878. 




THE EPIC OF HADES. 

ILLUSTRATED QUARTO EDITION. 



-*o*- 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

"Of Mr. Chapman's illustrations it is pleasant to be able to 
speak with considerable admiration, not only because they are 
a fortunate echo of the verse, and represent the feelings and 
incidents of the ' Epic,' but because of their intrinsic merits. 
There is in them a fine and high inspiration of an indefinite 
sort." — Athenceum^ March 29th, 1879. 

" ' The Epic of Hades ' is certainly one of the most remarkable 
works of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Here is an 
edition de luxe which may possibly tempt the unthinking to 
search for the jewel within the casket. It is adorned with 
designs in photo-mezzotint by Mr. George R. Chapman, all 
noticeable for originality and grace, while many are gems of 
exquisite feeling. " — World, February 12th, 1879. 

** We are glad to see this fine poem, on the whole finely 
illustrated. While some of the designs reach a very high point 
of beauty, none of them can be said to be absolute failures." — 
Spectator, January 25th, 1879. 

"The exquisite aerial feeling of 'Eros and Psyche,' — by far 
the best of the drawings, — in which the figures seem literally to 
float in ether. ' Laocoon ' is grand and dignified, and all deserve 
to be noticed with attention." — Graphic, January 25th, 1879. 

" These designs of themselves would be of the highest value, 
and when they are placed, as in this book, by way of illustration 
of a text which is full of power, their value is not easily 



lo OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

estimated. The book ought to be one of the most cherished 
gifts that any lover of poetry or the pencil could desire." — 
Scotsf?ian, January 23rd, 1879. 

"This remarkable poem now appears in a luxurious and 
beautiful fonn, illustrated by designs of considerable merit, and 
altogether forming a most suitable gift-book for lovers of 
poetry." — Church Zzw^r, January 24th, 1879. 

** It is doubtful whether Milton in these degenerate days would 
find many readers were he now to have published his mighty 
poems. An epic poem is indeed a trial of genius from which 
few can come out victorious ; but lovers of the gentle muse of 
poetry will doubtless pass a pleasant hour and more in perusing 
this ' Epic of Hades,' and the author has been most fortunate in 
his illustrator. The seventeen designs are gems of drawing and 
conception, and the mezzotint is admirably adapted to the style 
of drawing and subject. This is truly a charming addition to 
the literarv table. It is seldom one sees figure illustrations of 
such graceful and powerful beauty, and so thoroughly in sympathy 
with the visionary subjects of the author." — Art Journal, April, 
1879. 

" ' The Epic of Hades' has already won a place among the 
immortals. The lovely and terrible figures of the Greek 
mythology have never received a more exquisite consecration 
than at the hands of the author, who, with the true divination of 
the poet, has known how to interpret in the modern spirit the 
profound and pathetic fables of antiquity without vulgarizing by 
modern affectations their divine simplicity. This beautiful poem 
appears now in an edition de hixe — a setting not unworthy of 
such gems. The seventeen designs, by George R. Chapman, 
only fail to satisfy us, as any representation of ideal masterpieces 
must fail to satisfy the reader to whose imagination the poet has 
lent wings. These designs are noteworthy for their tenderness 
of sentiment and their languid grace. The Demeter and 
Persephone are charming ; but the charm of Demeter might 
perhaps be a little more august." — Daily News, April 2nd, 1879. 



THE ODE OF LIFE. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

'* The 'Ode of Life' ought to be the most popular of all the 
author's works. People flock to hear Mr. Stopford Brooke, or 
Dean Stanley, or the Bishop of Manchester preach, but in this 
book they will hear a voice more eloquent than theirs, dealing 
with the most important subjects that can ever occupy the 
thoughts of man. We find here the same smooth style, the 
same happy metaphors, the same clearness of thought, and the 
same graceful flow of rhythm, which in his other works won 
for the writer so many admirers." — Westfninster Review, July, 
1880. 

"The many who have found what seemed to them of value 
and of use in the previous writings of the author, may confidently 
turn to this, his latest and, in his own view, his most mature 
work. It is full of beauty of thought, feeling, and language." — 
Daily N'ews, April 8th, 1880. 

"Full of exquisite taste, tender colour, and delicate fancy, 
these poems will add considerably to the reputation of their 
author." — Sjinday Times, April 25th, 1880. 

*' The author is one of the few real poets \\o\n living. Any- 
thing at once more sympathetic and powerful it would be 
difficult to find in the poetry of the present day." — Scotsman, 
May nth, 1880. 

" We have read this book with pleasure and appreciation, and 
regard it as worthy of a place beside the volumes which he has 
already given to the public, and of which we, in common witli 
many critics, have felt constrained to speak in terms of high 
praise." — Literary World^ April 9th, 1880. 



12 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

** It would be easy to point out many passages of remarkable 
beauty. But lovers of poetry will soon find out the beauties for 
themselves, for this is a poem, not to be read once and forgotten, 
but to be read again and again, and pondered over and loved." — 
Manchester Examiner, April 28th, 1880. 

"This is a book to be enjoyed as well as to be studied and 

valued No previous poem by this writer is so rich in lines 

that live in the memory. Would that all our modern poets 
taught us so high and healthy a morality as that which we find 
in these delightful pages !" — Leeds Mercury, May 12th, 1880. 

"Next to the 'Epic of Hades,' it is his best work." — Cam- 
bridge Revircv, May 19th, 1880. 

" Here is one standing high in power and in fame who has 

chosen a nobler course The experiment is successful, and 

though we must not now discuss the laws to which the structure 
of an ode should conform, we rank the poem in this respect 
as standing far above Dryden's celebrated composition, but 
below the Odes of Wordsworth on Immortality and of Milton 
on the Nativity, which still remain peerless and without a 
rival." — Congregationalist , May 1st, 1880. 

"That the work shows more evidence of grace than of power 
may be explained by the familiarity of the subject. Such trace 
as there is of power is manifest when the theme is highest, 
especially in giving expression to the strong emotional yearnings 
which struggle through our dim intellectual apprehension of the 
central spiritual force of the universe. A high devout purpose 
and wide human sympathy ennoble all the writer's work, and 
his clear language and quiet music will retain his audience." 
— Nineteenth Century, August, 1880. 

" In all that respects technical points, certainly the most 
finished work we have yet had from the author's hand, and here 
and there the phrasing is exquisite. For ambitious aims, and 
for art which so far has justified those aims, for elevation and 
refinement, these poems are in advance of any of the author's 
former works." — British Quarterly Review, ^v\^, 1880. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. ,3 

" Any notice of recent poetry would be inadequate without a 
reference to the ' Ode of Life. ' The only fault we have to find 
with this really remarkable effort — a sort of expansion of Words- 
worth's famous Ode — is that it is rather too long for its ideas ; 
but it possesses power, sweetness, occasional profundity, and 
unmistakable music. It is, when all is said and done, a true 
' Ode,' sweeping the reader along as the ode should do, and 
* Growing like Atlas, stronger for its load.' 

It appears to us to bring definite proof that the writer's pre- 
tensions have not been over-stated." — Conte)jiporary Review, 
February, 1881. 



GWEN: 

A DRAMA IN MONOLOGUE. 



-♦o*- 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

"The charm of this beautiful little poem is its perfect simplicity of utterance ; 
Its chastened and exquisite grace. There is nothing very new in the incidents or 
in the characters of this most touching story, except in its unconventional ending, 
which takes the reader by surprise. The genius of the author has closed an idyll 
of love and death with a strain of sweet, sad music in that minor key which belongs 
to remembrance and regret." — Daily News, January 22nd, 1879. 

"We have read this new work with the interest arising from the expectations 
which the author had quickened in us, and with the hope of finding those ex- 
pectations confirmed. We are not disappointed, for we have here the same 
selectness of language, the same high, pure tone, the same delicate power of 
touching the deeper chords of thought and feeling, which have previously won our 
attention and sympathy." — Literary World, January 17th, 1879. 

" At the close of the tale the heart swells with pathos, and the tears all but 
force their way into the eyes. To turn from the most noteworthy of modern 
poetry to the verse in which * Gwen ' is written is like turning from a brilliant 
painting to a fine statue. We are scarcely sensible of want of colour, so refreshed 
are we by purity of outline. All, indeed, is graceful, good, and poetical work, as 
pure and limpid in flow as a brook." — Sunday Times, February 2nd, 1879. 

" Pretty, pensive, and pathetic are the epithets which in an alliterative mood 
one would feel disposed to apply to ' Gwen.' There are many exquisite passages, 
however, touching and musical, thoughtful and suggestive ; and the two principal 
characters pour out their hearts one to another in alternate bursts of song, as bird 
sings to bird among the branches." — Illustrated News, February 8th, 187Q. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 15 

" The piece as a whole will repay very attentive perusal, while here and 
there in it there is a particular choice bit of work. Here, for example, is a fine 
lyric .... and here a love-song of rare and exquisite beauty." — New York 
Evening Post, February 20th, 1879. 

"The book abounds with lyrics worthy, alike from their metrical sweetness 
and their deep tenderness and purity, to be set to music ; while over the whole 
story we are conscious of the easy power and the consummate mastery of his 
noble art, which distinguish the author. He is to be congratulated upon a 
genuine success in a new field, which must do much to sustain and extend his 
well-earned fame." — Leeds Mercury, February 26th, 1879. 

" Few among the later poets of our time have received such a generous welcome 
as the author. He has been appreciated not by critics aloTie, but by the general 

public The charm of ' Gwen ' is to be found in the limpid clearness of the 

versification, in the pathetic notes which tell the old story of true love wounded 
and crushed. Nothing can be more artistically appropriate or more daintily 
melodious than the followhig " — Pal^ Ma/l Gazette, October 8th, i8yg. 

" Our author has a message to deliver to the age which no other can deliver so 
well as he." — Freeman, August 15th, 1879. 

"Seldom has literature been enriched by a more beautiful poem than the 
author's latest work, ' Gwen,' which ought to extend the popularity he has gained 
already. It surpasses any of his former works in intensity of pathos and subtle 
and vivid delineation of passion." — Scotsman, June 5th, 1879. 

"The poem is, as a whole, tender, simple, chaste in feeling, and occasionally 
it rises to a lyrical loftiness of sentiment or grows compact with vigorous 
thought." — New York "^Nation," March 27th. 1879. 

" The writer has gained inspiration from themes which inspired Dante ; he has 
sung sweet songs and musical lyrics ; and whether writing in rhyme or blank 
verse, has proved himself a master of his instrument. He knows, like all true 
poets, how to transmute what may be called common into the pure gold of 
poetry." — Spectator, July 26th, 1879. 



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